


Broken Love

by bavaria44



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Alternate History, Anal Sex, Battle, Blood and Gore, Brother Feels, Brothers, Fights, Historical, Incest, M/M, Sexual Content, War Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-01 04:34:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bavaria44/pseuds/bavaria44
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How could something this beautiful be a crime punishable by hanging? He wants me, Alfred realized, he loves me, not as brothers love each other but as lovers do. //HumanAU;UsCan;Another one of my Love&War fics, this time set in the French and Indian War//</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Hetalia does not belong to me. Thank you my dear Schauspielerinnen for beta-editing.

 

MY Spectre around me night and day  
Like a wild beast guards my way;  
My Emanation far within  
Weeps incessantly for my sin.

'A fathomless and boundless deep,  
There we wander, there we weep;  
On the hungry craving wind  
My Spectre follows thee behind.

William Blake

 

A young man's blue eyes slowly opened.

The war ground on in the north, back and forth with little gain. The Assembly had been reconvened and Father had gone to another meeting with the townspeople. The brothers lay together in silence in Matthew's canopied bed, dyed in candlelight.

"You are beautiful," Alfred told his brother when they were alone and hidden from the world. "From heat to toe, every part of you is beautiful." Immediately, he rebuked himself for saying something so stupid.

Matthew looked straight at him. "Hush, you idiot." His voice was flowing amber, liquid with his French accent. "If Father knew, he would…"

"Think us sick." Alfred worked at keeping his senses together. On late nights, however, he wanted to be inside Matthew so badly his body hurt.

Matthew frowned. "Hang us both." After a heart beat, he added, "This is pure madness. What if he has got eyes upon us? What if he suspects something already?"

"What if he has an army of owls spying on us?" Alfred cocked his head and laughed aloud.

Matthew's frown deepened. "This is no jest."

"Oh, I am utterly serious," Alfred said, feigning Arthur's voice.

Matthew studied his brother's face. "He hates me," he whispered, suddenly panicky. "He's afraid I won't meet his expectations."

Alfred scoffed and shook his head. "He is slow in the head and has anger issues. He can toss a mean face, but that is all." He gave a pause; in the soft yellow light, Matthew's blue, blue eyes made him look both feminine and shy. How could something this beautiful be a crime punishable by hanging? Images started to drift into his mind, filthy and unhindered. Alfred imagined fucking his little brother but tried to remain calm and nonchalant. Nonetheless, he could feel his cock getting hard. "No, he does not frighten me," he announced and kissed Matthew on the tip of his nose. "And neither should he frighten you."

"The things we do…" Matthew's fearful expression said it all. "It is folly, Alfred. Folly."

Alfred touched Matthew's chest and pushed him gently into the sheets. "A folly done for love," he purred, eyes half lidded.

Matthew smiled in disbelief and his heart did a little flip in his chest.

"If Father knew," Alfred continued as he lowered his head, "you wouldn't be here now, with me, would you? And me," he grinned, "I wouldn't be…," and kissed Matthew on his neck, "…doing…," and pulled up Matthew's vest and kissed him on his bare stomach, "…this," and discovered his hard cock beneath the thick fabric.

Alfred lifted his eyes and the two smiled at one another.

Matthew pouted. "Oh, you are so clever."

"Besides, I will tell him to go bugger himself with a hot poker the next time he treats you like an idiot child."

"Don't make waves. Don't rock the boat," Matthew replied and kissed Alfred.

Alfred kissed him back and moved a hand between Matthew's legs.

At first, Matthew resisted, batting Alfred's hand away and murmuring in fast French. But then his protests became whimpers and his breathing got heavier.

Alfred unsnapped the flap of his brother's breeches and slid further, down to the flesh below his belly. Matthew's skin was warm silk beneath his fingers.

This time Matthew didn't stop him.

Alfred leaned closer. "Is this alright?" He whispered right in Matthew's ear.

Matthew nodded. The boy was wet and eager. "Hurry," he urged, between kisses, as his fingers went to Alfred's waist. "Oh, hurry, hurry." He fumbled with Alfred's flap, but his brother was quicker. When Alfred's thumb brushed against his foreskin, he stiffened.

Alfred gripped Matthew's cock and began to stroke it with slow, loose strokes. At the sight of Matthew's parted lips, fluttering eyes, and listening to his harsh gasps, he could feel the heat rising inside him, a terrible sweet heat burning in his belly.

 _Can we truly love,_ Alfred wondered. No, he didn't want to know the answer. Some things he would rather not know. Matthew wanted to be with him more often, he had told him, _I do miss you... between the sheets,_ one night after they made love. Alfred had lain beside him, Matthew's head pillowed against his chest, his groin aching with sweet soreness...

"Al-Alfred...," Matthew said, part moan, part yelp, and wrinkled up his boyish face.

Alfred knew that face and loved it. Blond hair, white skin, and eyes so blue they seemed violet. You could drown in them. And Alfred had. His hand moved faster.

One hand pressed flat on Alfred's back, the other one twisting sheets, gasps and muffled shrieks of pleasure were coming from Matthew. It was awful and amazing; Alfred's hand was clumsy and frantic and inept and the whole scene was rather vaguely comical, and Matthew exploded at the end.

Still out of breath, Matthew touched Alfred's face and said, "I am lost without you." He kissed him, a light kiss, the merest brush of his lips on Alfred's. "I am not whole without you."

Alfred made no reply, save with his eyes. There was hunger in his eyes. Alfred could feel his brother tremble as he slid his arm around him to turn him over. He kissed him again, Matthew's mouth opened for his tongue. He kissed him, kissed him hard until Matthew moaned, and pushed down his breeches.

Matthew murmured about the risk, the danger, about Arthur finding them like this, about God's wrath. Alfred never heard him, he put his finger into Matthew's mouth and Matthew sucked. When Alfred put his finger inside him, his feeble hands curled into fists. "Quickly," Matthew was whispering and whimpering again. "Alfred, oh, Alfred..."

Alfred added another finger and kissed Matthew on his shoulder, on his back, on his thigh. Matthew murmured incoherently and pounded against the pillow. So he kissed him again on his back and pulled out his fingers and licked Matthew's secret wetness, on and on until his chin and Matthew's puckered flesh were both soaked. Matthew gave a soft moan and shuddered.

Alfred undid his own breeches and climbed up and roughly pushed Matthew's bare white legs apart. One hand he slid up his thigh and grabbed onto a butt cheek. He spit in his free hand and covered his cock with the saliva.

"Quickly, brother, quickly, do it now, do me now..." Matthew's hand helped Alfred to guide him. "Yes," Matthew said as Alfred thrust into him. "Yes, my brother, my Alfred, yes, like that, yes, have me, have me..."

Alfred kissed Matthew's nape, kissed his ear, and stroked his lengthy blond hair. He had lost himself in Matthew's body. He could feel his brother's heart beating in time with his own, he could feel Matthew's warmth and wetness and his seed where they were joined.

* * *

 

That night, after their Father had returned, Alfred got very drunk. The streets were rising and falling with masses of people. Alfred was lying in bed while the ceiling moved like the sea and their Father was reading a pamphlet. Matthew waited, afraid to breathe. When Arthur Kirkland read to the end, he folded the pamphlet and stared at the cover page for a long moment. Then Arthur's chilly eyes fell upon Matthew and he took a sip of his cup of green leaf tea.

Alfred thought that the only way he could ever keep Matthew safe would be to run away and join the army. Perhaps right away, or very, very soon. Alfred was old enough.

This scenario was also scary, however. He imagined every possibility and saw himself facing the Frogs at Fort Beauséjour : teeth clenched, eyes narrowed, ready to shoot and slay; saw himself pulling a musket; saw himself riding a strong bay horse in the van of an army of redcoats; even saw himself walking toward the enemy with a knife and a tomahawk in his hands. Every image was as real as breakfast.

At the first light of the morning, Alfred woke up sullen. Matthew was gone. He left a goodbye note for him. "I will take up the quill and sign up," Matthew wrote, "Pour Nouvelle France."

* * *

Alfred stared at the cyanide sky, the stars, steady and guiding, were barely visible through the gathering clouds.

_The stars smiled down on us back then._

"If we want to advance, we have to take our chances. Strike now, I say, swiftly from the shadows," Arthur whispered, his green eyes fixed on a small patch of forest in front of them. "They will all be dead by the time they know what hit them."

They had been lying here, waiting here for an eternity, screening the horizon for the invisible enemy. Alfred hurt, he was cold and hungry. "So... is this where I die for America?"

Arthur gave Alfred a cold look. "That is why I am here, Alfred. To make sure you don't."

"That is a consolation." Alfred nodded. He gave himself a moment to look at the stars again and inhaled deeply.

_The stars smiled down on us back then, Matthew._

"Do you ever think about him?" Alfred exchanged a stone-faced look with Arthur. "About Matt…"

"I know whom you meant." Arthur fell silent for a long moment. Then he softened and found himself unsteady as he spoke far more honestly than he ever had wanted to. "I remember his name. I remember his face. He was family just as you are. And yet…," he paused, searching for words. "Here we are."

As much as Alfred had tried, he couldn't read Arthur's mind. But… _This is it,_ Arthur's eyes were telling him. _This is how it tastes like. Betrayal._

"Alfred, don't you dare ask me where we went wrong. We did not, your brother did. So quit looking at me like that."

"Like what?" Alfred asked, puzzled.

"You know like what."

Alfred didn't know.

"The honor it cost me, the shame... Christ...!" Arthur swore under his breath.

The moment was broken by the sound of a distant thunder. Alfred jolted but Arthur gratefully turned his attention to it. "It is going to rain," Arthur observed. Then he looked over his shoulder. "This is an army of redcoats and country men here, and a defiant one but still. My redcoats will fight. But your fishers dropped their nets, picked up their muskets and came to seek glory. What will they do when the enemy charges? Will they fight?"

"Aye, Sir." Alfred touched his brows with his knuckles. "Many may die and run… but they will fight."

"Mayhaps you're right." Arthur shifted onto his knees. "Keep your memories in your heart and your enemy in your sight, Alfred."

Arthur took his musket and had been on his feet already when he squatted down to Alfred and grabbed him by the arm. "Pray tell you will not let your heart lead you into folly."

Alfred shook his head. "You worry too much."

Arthur looked toward the hidden enemy camp. "I despise them," he said softly. "Oh God, how I despise them. Every bloody Crapaud deserves to die."

And together, they took off, dashing across the narrow strip of dark green field, leaving their life-saving foxholes behind.

To be continued...

Bavaria


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How could something this beautiful be a crime punishable by hanging? He wants me, Alfred realized, he loves me, not as brothers love each other but as lovers do. //HumanAU;UsCan;Another one of my Love&War fics, this time set in the French and Indian War//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Hetalia does not belong to me. Thank you my dear Schauspielerinnen for beta-editing.

'HE scents thy footsteps in the snow  
Wheresoever thou dost go,  
Thro' the wintry hail and rain.  
When wilt thou return again?

'Dost thou not in pride and scorn  
Fill with tempests all my morn,  
And with jealousies and fears  
Fill my pleasant nights with tears?

William Blake

 

All was quiet. The enemy was asleep. A morning mist hovered over the French camp. A barn owl fed at the base of a tall fir. A thunder, low and rolling, broke the stillness. The bird stopped feeding, stirred, looked about uneasily, and then swooped away soundlessly.

At another roll of the thunder the French commander woke. The colonel got out of his tent, his movements stiff and uncoordinated from sleep, and pulled on his waistcoat.

Shadows, two dozens of them, stepped out as one from the surrounding trees. Behind the fir, a figure in the darkness carrying a musket moved from shadow to shadow. Alfred pressed close against the nearest tree and squinted at the Frog who was barking commands. Alfred listened analytically though he didn't understand a word. Then his eyes fell upon Arthur.

Arthur put on a smile. "We tracked them down, those bastards," he told Alfred, his voice low and tetchy. "Now we will kill them all." His grin widened with every word. "A walk in the park."

"A walk in the park," Alfred echoed.

"Remember, Alfred, speed is the key."

 _Three shots; a good marksman can fire three shots per minute. That's all it takes,_ Alfred thought to himself. _Speed is the key._ He clasped the musket, his Brown Bess, firmly and wondered, why was it that his hand was so steady, the gun in his grip as if it was an extension of his limb, the one best friend – _I'm worthless without her; she's worthless without me._

The instant the French commander had hid behind bushes to take a piss, Arthur spoke firmly to his lieutenants. "Alfred, there," he pointed. "Antonio, there. Gilbert, with me."

The uniformed men nodded.

"Epaulets first. Gilbert and I will kill the officers," Arthur said in a hoarse voice. His eyes darted around, absorbing the terrain, looking for advantage. "Tony, the artillery, I want their cannons."

The German and the Spaniard cocked their muskets and exchanged a knowing, confident look.

"Alfred, kill the colonel if we won't succeed, and whoever remains standing. Do not let any of those froggy bastards escape." Before he and his six redcoats disappeared into the underbrush, he added, "And lads, stay out of sight."

Alfred went where he was told.

* * *

The wind became violent, gusting in short waves, changing its direction every second. The intense downdraft of air spread on the ground and whirled clouds of dirt and tufts of grass. The trees swayed.

Then came the rain. The first raindrops hit the pines and stones before they melted into an impenetrable curtain of water. A fork of lightning broke the darkness and split the sky in half.

"Ready," Alfred heard Arthur's command. "Aim," flat, calm, unemotional. "Fire," in a voice scarcely above a whisper, followed by immediate musket fire, and another one, and another. The musket shots were coming in an erratic rhythm, like spits of an ancient beast.

All this water, this mud, this haze, this weariness, Alfred's vision was a blur enlightened only by the strafe. He prayed for a steady hand, precise shots and quick kills, to be able to take out as many Frogs as possible as fast as he could. He wasn't going to stop until there was nothing more to slay.

The fifty rain-soaked French soldiers were taken by surprise. The strobes of Arthur's and Gilbert's united volley provided targets for two inaccurate musket shots, the French shooters falling to their knees in a heartbeat. Darkness veiled the killing grounds again, punctuated by screams of pain, confused hollering and the rustling of armed men in movement.

Then the pattern repeated itself: musket fire, creating flashes of light, illuminating a tableau of faces and another murderous volley of shots. When the Spaniard's muskets silenced, blackness flooded the wood. Alfred waited, then picked his target and fired, killing a French soldier with a shot to the chest. Frankly, Alfred had thought that it would be more difficult to take a man's life. And the staccato resumed. This time, however, a few French soldiers got their hands upon their guns and fired back.

Alfred knelt, out of the line of fire. "Reload!" he shouted. _Speed is the key._

Shots had cut through the air; some of them hitting the trunks of the pines swinging in the wind, burrowing under their thick bark; bursts of fire lit the sludgy soil below Alfred's feet. All the space around suddenly became repugnant, malignant like some disease.

As Arthur's redcoats answered back, Alfred ripped the small paper cartridge off with his teeth. The smell and taste of powder filled his senses. He poured the powder into the smooth barrel of his muzzle-loaded musket; followed by a lead ball. With help of a ramrod he pushed it all deep into the barrel. Others had done the same; without a thought; without reluctance. Like semi-clockwork beings – still partially human and partly mechanical.

"Fire at will!" Alfred heard Arthur's command and lifted his Brown Bess. _Oh God,_ he prayed, _let it not misfire._ He aimed and pulled the trigger. A fat white Frog ran directly into the swirls of gun powder and lead. A scream, and it was over.

From this moment on, Alfred never stopped moving. He strode rather than ran, staying just inside the brush, offering only glimpses of himself to the remaining French soldiers, his group flanking him as he changed his pace and direction repeatedly, ducking and weaving, firing and loading while moving. He never gave the Frogs a stationary target, especially one marked by fire and billowing smoke from his flintlock. It was an Indian tactic and it worked.

Alfred ducked to the side as a volley of enemy shots tore into the spot marked by his own musket fire. A young French soldier tracked him with his barrel, about to fire. Alfred suddenly stopped dead and reversed direction. The Frenchman fired and missed.

In the chaos of fire and blood, Alfred caught a glimpse of Arthur holding his musket by the barrel and swinging it through the air, slamming its stock into the side of his foe's head.

"Got that bugger!" Arthur screamed. He swapped the bloodied musket with Feliciano's and fired, dropping another Frenchman. Arthur's aide-de-camp, a sweet chestnut-haired boy who came to British America with his hot-headed brother, was weeping as he loaded and handed the primed musket to Arthur who fired and killed a French sergeant with a shot to the throat. Alfred could see that too.

 _This is a different Arthur, a vicious, savage Arthur, killing with stunning brutality,_ Alfred found himself thinking.

Feliciano finished reloading, swapped muskets with Arthur again, and the both of them vanished out of Alfred's sight when the French colonel stepped between them and Alfred's view, slashing with his sword and still shouting commands at his priming and reloading and fleeing soldiers.

Alfred's heart was beating violently. _Please God... help me,_ he prayed. _Don't… don't let me fail my men._

Alfred's body was hurting from the engagement. Every his muscle was burning, screaming in protest as he lunged forward. He ran. He ran as fast as his legs allowed him. He ran as if running was the only means of his existence. He jumped over a fallen, rotting tree trunk, reloaded and aimed directly between the French colonel's eyes. Alfred could have sighted that damn white and blue coat with golden buttons from miles away! Teeth clenching, he placed his finger on the trigger and prepared to fire…

… between the Frenchman's eyes…

... those blue, blue eyes.

_Wait._

Something was wrong.

A distant thought crept into Alfred's mind.

Alfred couldn't believe what he was seeing.

_Matthew?_

To be continued...

Bavaria


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How could something this beautiful be a crime punishable by hanging? He wants me, Alfred realized, he loves me, not as brothers love each other but as lovers do. //HumanAU;UsCan;Another one of my Love&War fics, this time set in the French and Indian War//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Hetalia does not belong to me. Thank you my dear Schauspielerinnen for beta-editing.

 

'Seven of my sweet loves thy knife  
Has bereavèd of their life.  
Their marble tombs I built with tears,  
And with cold and shuddering fears.

'Seven more loves weep night and day  
Round the tombs where my loves lay,  
And seven more loves attend each night  
Around my couch with torches bright.

William Blake

 

"Matthew?" Alfred managed to blurt out. He slowed down, stumbled, then eventually came to a stop. He could well imagine the dumbfounded look on his face right now; it must have been hilarious.

His body gave up. It didn't feel alive anymore, more like a sack full of potatoes. Alfred fell down to his knees, loosing his grip on the musket. His eyes were burning. He could only guess it was either the rain, the sweat or perhaps tears. Alfred didn't remember when the last time he cried was.

The flare at the end of a barrel stole his attention. Something hammered into him with intense force. Plain shock mixed with sharp pain shot throughout his body. The sounds of the battle around him died down as a warm mist raced in and swallowed him. With almost infant curiosity Alfred examined the wound in his side.

He was not afraid.

Fresh blood spread quickly on his uniform… dark red... so warm.

"That Frog must be one hell of a shooter," Alfred murmured under his breath and allowed himself to shut his eyes for a minute. When he opened them again, he was staring at the thunderous sky. The grass was soft and wet with rain; its long stalks brushed his ears and neck. Suddenly, all those months spent in the field caught up with him. He was so tired, so goddamn tired. He hadn't slept in ages. At least he thought so.

A movement in the corner of his eye brought Alfred out of his silent reverie. Something rattled as it fell into the grass next to him. Alfred raked together the last pieces of his strength merely to turn his head – and he saw, thankfully, an acquaintance, a very well-known face – Arthur's aide-de-camp.

Alfred stretched out his hand. "Feliciano." Every move caused him incredible pain.

Feliciano took Alfred's hand. "Stay with me, Alfred," he spoke softly, almost pleadingly, his eyes red-rimmed with tears. "Alfred, please."

"I'm trying," Alfred whispered, shifting his gaze from the young boy's face to his left shoulder, shredded and bloody. "You're hurt."

"It...," Feliciano choked on his tears. "It's nothing," he said with a thin, trembling voice, never loosening his iron grip on Alfred's hand.

Alfred blinked a few times. The cold, autumn rain kept falling down onto his face. The lights of battle – the strobes of now-sporadic musket shots illuminated the woods above him now and then.

"Don't close your eyes, Alfred. Don't...," came Feliciano's boyish voice again. It faded and grew and faded again.

Strength was leaking out of Alfred fast. But Alfred kept holding onto Feliciano's voice, onto that life which was flowing through his fingers. Until the darkness began to feel comfortable, luring him, pulling him deeper into its embrace. And then his world ceased to exist.

To be continued...

Bavaria


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How could something this beautiful be a crime punishable by hanging? He wants me, Alfred realized, he loves me, not as brothers love each other but as lovers do. //HumanAU;UsCan;Another one of my Love&War fics, this time set in the French and Indian War//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Hetalia does not belong to me. Thank you my dear Schauspielerinnen for beta-editing.

'And seven more loves in my bed  
Crown with wine my mournful head,  
Pitying and forgiving all  
Thy transgressions great and small.

'When wilt thou return and view  
My loves, and them to life renew?  
When wilt thou return and live?  
When wilt thou pity as I forgive?'

William Blake

 

It was a rather balmy day in August. Woodlands – beautiful and untamed; soaring old-growth elms arched over riverside maples along the shores of a gently curving, deep-water river. The water was clear, with fields of floating lily pads, each with a stark white flower rising from it.

Upstream were the swamps. Hundreds of birds sung their songs there. Shafts of sunlight pierced the canopy, cutting through the hanging moss, falling onto soft, swaying ferns that covered the higher ground.

Their house was built between the banks of the river and the deep green of the swamps. It was a good, fertile land, hacked out of the wilderness. The perfectly tended fields were ripe with barley, hops, alfalfa and wheat. Matthew worked one of the fields, rhythmically swinging his scythe through the barley.

The house, built of native brick, was well-constructed and well-maintained. There was a barn and a workshop. It was a home of wealth.

Alfred, strong and handsome, walked out of the woods with a musket in his hand and a dozen quails over his shoulder.

Matthew lifted his eyes and saw him. He threw down his scythe and tore down a path, running as fast as he could, stumbling, then regaining his feet.

"I wish I'd spent more time with you," Alfred said to him apologetically after Matthew had caught up with him. "Of all the things I regret, this is the one I regret the most."

Matthew threw himself into his arms, embracing him. Then Matthew stepped back and they exchanged warm but uneasy smiles, and Alfred saw it: _He wants me,_ he realized. _He loves me. Not as brothers love each other. As lovers do._

Matthew took Alfred´s hand and they walked through the field. The barley rattled rhythmically with the wind and their movements. "Don't give up on me yet," Matthew told him after a while. "Don't forget who I am."

"What are you talking about, Matthew?" Alfred asked, clueless. "I know who you are. I know your name. I know your..." A distant thunder cut though everything he wanted to say. Alfred looked curiously at the cloudless sky.

Matthew's grip on Alfred's hand tightened. "Breathe, Alfred."

Whispers in the dark; Alfred heard them with great clarity, _I remember his name. I remember his face. He was family just as you are. And yet, here we are._

Another roll of thunder. The ground began to shake. These sounds became deeper, more ominous. A cacophony of shots and screams. Alfred knew them. Somehow. It was the distant booms of cannon and the pattering wave of hundreds of muskets firing.

Both brothers noticed the change.

"Matthew?"

"Breathe," Matthew reiterated. "I don't want to live without you. Breathe."

_Breathe._

Alfred took a deep breath. His lungs burned as they fought for air. For a short-lived moment he thought he saw Arthur staring down at him, a cleft between his thick eyebrows as usual.

"Can you breathe, lad?" Arthur spoke firmly, but Alfred could hear the discontent in his voice. "Take your hands away!" Were there tears in his eyes? "Oh you stupid, stupid boy."

Alfred stirred. "It-it's just a scratch," he said breathlessly. "Help… help m-me up." He tried to sit but convulsed in pain instead and began to sink back as thousands of flaming arrows shot through his abdomen, and a wordless cry tore out of him.

"Stay down!" Arthur lowered him gently to the ground and held him down. "Lieutenant Beilschmidt, get in here!" the Englishman shouted, his voice hoarse and ragged and definitive.

Alfred closed his eyes and fixed his thoughts on his brother he had lost so long ago. _I still feel the same about you though everything has changed and I miss you more than you can imagine. I cannot understand it. You're all that's clean and pure and complete. I regret that we were never together as we planned to be._ "Please stay on at the house and wait for me," he gasped.

"Alfred!"

Blinding darkness surrounded Alfred. His lungs sought for some air, but there was none. He heard hurrying steps and a couple of German words spoken in haste. It was getting harder for him to stay awake. A hand clutched at his nape and the air magically returned. In a sudden rush of panic, he searched for Arthur's face. He caught a glimpse of his bloody hands instead and began to slip away again.

"Alfred! Alfred! Alfred!"

"I'm here," Alfred murmured miserably. "Don't shout at me." Just before he felt his calm come crashing down, thankfully, the fatigue crossed his eyes and he was unable to stop it.

"I've got you. I've got you. You're doing well, my boy. We're going home…" Arthur´s voice trailed away.

"Is he…?" Someone else asked.

_Breathe, Alfred. Breathe._

"Nein," said a resolute voice. "He is breathing... barely, but he is breathing." There was a sound of metal scraping against fabric. "Hold him down."

"Look at all the blood." A man with a strong Spanish accent joined the conversation. "We all know what that means. No one in the world can patch him up now like this."

"Can… can you say that again?" Arthur snapped at the Spaniard. "Take that big, pig face of yours back to your little half-bred gitano friends or I'll scrag you with my bare hands!"

Alfred listened to them and wondered when exactly he stopped calling Arthur 'Father'.

Then jolts of pain, excruciating pain made his body writhe in agony. Lights went out. The curtain fell. A new scene opened: A round, young face, cheerful and light-hearted face framed with golden hair – Alfred saw the small boy who, despite being afraid of the dark, watched the stars with him so fondly. They rode across the sun-soaked fields with the summer wind, arms spread, flying... with the summer wind, strong but not violent, carrying the odor of the ocean. Alfred could hear his voice, _Don't be afraid, be strong_. His soft, childish voice, and a joyful laughter. _You are not alone, Alfred._

_No, I'm not,_ Alfred replied, _Neither are you. No matter where you are, Matthew, no matter what you do,_ _I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you and bring you home,_ as he was sinking into the sunlight.

To be continued...

Bavaria


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How could something this beautiful be a crime punishable by hanging? He wants me, Alfred realized, he loves me, not as brothers love each other but as lovers do. //HumanAU;UsCan;Another one of my Love&War fics, this time set in the French and Indian War//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Hetalia does not belong to me. Thank you my dear Schauspielerinnen for beta-editing. You are the best!!!

'O'er my sins thou sit and moan:  
Hast thou no sins of thy own?  
O'er my sins thou sit and weep,  
And lull thy own sins fast asleep.

'What transgressions I commit  
Are for thy transgressions fit.  
They thy harlots, thou their slave;  
And my bed becomes their grave.

William Blake

On a windswept bluff, he stood waiting. The man of his dreams, still a boy, strayed, lost and almost forgotten, but who would love him more than anything for the rest of his life. They ran to each other. Their bodies, their lips... they were coming closer and closer together. Until, finally... they kiss...

Alfred woke up with a start, disoriented; his head was throbbing, his stomach churning. What day was it? And what month? The only thing Alfred knew for sure was that he was no longer on the battlefield. He bluntly studied the ceiling, and tried to remember...

Heavy clouds were shedding drops of rain. Some French were hiding in the forest. Maybe a whole battalion was lurking there.

Alfred couldn't stop his mind from racing and a headache started to sneak in. He took a deep breath, licked his chapped lips, looked around – and saw dark faces belonging to dark souls; farmers, fishers, shepherds – all of them soldiers now, their eyes, their bayonets, glistening. Behold the glorious warrior! It was so beautiful, it was scary. A familiar voice whispered, and then the fire started. Alfred didn't look back. He didn't turn back. He ran... Got blood on his hands. He ran…

Directly into the lion's den.

Shots were flying all around, making rueful whining sounds. A Frenchman hit the ground hard to take cover. Others weren't so lucky.

Alfred buried a bullet into someone's chest, into someone's shoulder, and into someone's leg. His bestiality propelled many an enemy backwards. Those poor bastards, stunned by the musket fire, charging only one way: back where they came from.

Alfred reloaded and fired shot after shot until the enemies disappeared; their screams disappeared; the forest disappeared. All that remained was the sky.

Alfred fell down on his knees, tick tock, listening to his life passing by.

It was another time, another day. Not today. Today, Alfred was lying in a bed in a masoned house, old, stinky but warm. His uniform was gone. Instead he was wearing worn-out civilian clothes, evidently not tailored for him. Someone must have undressed him, cleaned, put in much bigger breeches and shirt, and wrapped him in thick blankets.

Alfred turned his head to the side, and winced as the pain from his wounds flooded him again. There was a fireplace, and warmth and light was oozing from it. The sight filled him with peace and serenity, made him wonder if it all really happened, if it wasn't just a dream… a rather awful one. However, after Alfred recognized the shape of a person sitting by the fire, peace and serenity were gone like the wind. Not knowing if from the pain, the memory or Arthur himself, Alfred almost threw up.

Arthur's face was drained of all color. His eyelids fluttered and opened as if he was waking from a dream. "He has to come back. I cannot lose them both." Arthur was praying.

Alfred had never heard him pray before; not when their mother died, nor when Matthew left.

"Please… my beautiful boy. Don't take him away. Not yet." Arthur was seated in a plain wooden chair, one leg put over the other, his hands resting in his lap. The emerald green irises weren't bright any longer, they were dark and blank, seemingly bereft of emotion, and directed at a random spot on the dirt floor. There was a nightstand in front of him, with a half-empty carafe, a smudgy glass, a nicely carved wooden box, and a pistol.

"Wh-what happened?" Alfred asked, amazed by the weakness of his own voice.

Only then did Arthur's face turn to him, white; the face of a dead man. "You're awake." Arthur wiped his eyes with a sleeve. "How are you feeling?"

"Weak… small… fucking vulnerable. But I'm alive... I think." Alfred tried to brace himself on his elbows and sit, fending the pain off by sheer force of his will, thinking it's the hardest thing he'd ever done.

"Don't get up," Arthur was by Alfred's bed in a second. "Rest. Gilbert says your wound is nasty but not life-threatening. He has removed the bullet and all the cloth stuck around it. You will recover. I will," he said, checking him up, "get clean bandages and water."

"No," Alfred clasped Arthur's arm. "Wait." Sweat drops formed on Alfred's brow and trailed down his face. He nodded and let himself be tucked back into bed.

Alfred examined some dark smears on Arthur's red uniform's sleeves. Even in the faint light they stood out. Blood. It wasn't Arthur's. There wasn't a scratch on Arthur. "What happened?"

From his jacket pocket, Arthur removed a small round object, and handed it over to him. "You were stupid." Arthur spoke in a quiet voice that was more matter-of-fact than sad. "You were shot."

Alfred took the lead ball with a weak hand. Such a small thing, and it nearly killed him. "How long?" He lifted his eyes from the round.

Arthur shoved his trembling hands into the pockets on each side of his breeches, probably fearing that they would give him away. "Three days." Arthur leaned forward. "Now it is your turn, Alfred, to tell me what happened." He paused to listen to a reply that never came. "Why didn't you fire?" Seeing a clueless expression on Alfred's face, Arthur continued. "Why didn't you kill the bugger before he almost killed you?"

Alfred shivered. Above all the pain inflicted on his body, he felt an ache rising in his deserted heart. "I think I saw a ghost."

Arthur's eyes pierced him instantly.

"Believe me, I know how it sounds. Matthew… he…," Alfred began and stopped abruptly, for he saw how Arthur closed his eyes for a brief moment and shook his head in disbelief.

"The bombardment gave you a concussion," Arthur said calmly and nodded as if to affirm the obvious. "And the bullet gave you the rest. That must be it." Then he paced slowly back to the fireplace, took the carafe off the nightstand and poured himself a drink. He finished it in one shot. "Whom you saw, Alfred was the bastard Crapaud colonel."

Alfred's brows furrowed.

"Yes." Arthur poured himself another drink. "Here I was, thinking that you are a boy no longer." He gestured towards Alfred with the cut glass bottle. "That you are sixteen now, a man grown. I've been mistaken. But I will mend that. I am depriving you of your command."

Stunned, confused by Arthur's words, Alfred tried to rise and sit. His arms weakened and faltered beneath him. Pain spread though his abdomen like wildfire. "Don't... don't do that," he gritted out between his teeth. "Just give me another chance."

"You had your chance, lad," Arthur fumed, his jaw set with anger. He slowly laid down both the carafe and the glass and spoke with quiet fury. "You are no longer capable of doing your duty."

Alfred was listening; teeth clenched, but didn't reply.

Arthur's voice started to ramble. "It wasn't like Oswego. This time, we stayed in the trees. And we had luck on our side. That idiot marched his Frogs straight at us. We fired a few volleys into them and they broke like straw. Fifty men. Us? One dead, one wounded." He gave Alfred a tired smile. "Once you get past their first line, they break and drop the muskets and run. It is too easy sometimes." Arthur looked at Alfred closely. "But a celebration would be premature. We have a difficult campaign ahead of us. We will move north where a predominately hostile country awaits us and we cannot rely on forage." Arthur quieted for a moment. Then he spoke, "This isn't a game. This is war. And damn you, Alfred, if you behave like a child, you get killed."

Then the bourbon whiskey kicked in. Arthur reeled and staggered and sat down. He laid his elbows on his knees and linked his hands just like Socrates when he was thinking about the ailments of Athens. Arthur looked older in that moment, much older, with the load of their homeland's fate lying on his shoulders. "I have already lost sons of other men." He paused, remembering. "Life would be easier if we only had ourselves to get killed." Arthur took the pistol in his lap and closed his tired eyes, the silence soon followed.

Alfred simply took a deep breath and began: "Arthur."

Arthur didn't respond.

"Look at me."

Still nothing.

"Please, look at me," Alfred raised his voice. His heart was beating faster than ever before. "I am no longer a child."

Arthur slowly opened his eyes and linked them with Alfred's. "Prove me wrong then."

"I still believe that I am the fucking corporal who saved your ass more than once. I led your Lobster-backs through the wilderness. And I can hold my locker better than you any day."

"Now that is the truth." Arthur bobbed his head and looked down at the pistol in his lap. "That last one, especially." He stretched to the nightstand and exchanged the pistol for the wooden box. "That pistol," he continued, "was a gift of mutual respect," carefully extracting a delicate piece of paper from the box, "between two men. While this...," he began reading: "My dearly beloved brother."

Alfred didn't need Arthur telling him who wrote it; he knew those words, he had heard them every night. Stone-faced, he watched as Arthur finished the letter, being secretly thankful for Matthew's discretion and gift for naming things with other, more subtle words.

"A new day had come," the letter ended. "Unable to find peace, only confusion and dying hope, I dispersed the wish for a comforting sleep. A long journey lies before me and I don't want to waste any time."

"So?" Arthur examined Alfred thoughtfully, without revealing what he was thinking.

Alfred sat frozen, appalled and fascinated. "You took it from me."

"Was it love, Alfred?" Arthur folded the letter and placed it back.

"You make it sound like a disease," Alfred answered, more an observation than a question.

"You tell me." With shaking hands, Arthur poured himself another glass. "Look. He wrote you a letter, you kept it, read it… over and over... Am I right?" He asked without waiting for an answer really. "You miss him. This is hard, I know. You," he gulped the whiskey down, "loved him. I understand. We all loved him, but he's gone."

"You say that again and we're not family."

Arthur spoke calmly but firmly: "Why are you so angry?"

"Do me a favor. Pretend to be a good man for a while... only a while out of your whole life, Arthur."

Arthur didn't answer right away. He looked into Alfred's eyes coldly first. "Matthew was special. And he ruined our lives. First, he feels sympathy for those frog-eating surrender monkeys, and then someone sees him in dubious company of other young men." He shook his head. "That, truly, broke my heart." And he saw the surprised and ingenuous expression on Alfred's face and smiled at the effect. "Oh yes, I knew. I have always known. Did he think I didn't? Did he think I was blind?"

_No. He thought he was invisible to you,_ Alfred thought. He grew increasingly agitated. He heard the disdain in Arthur's voice, saw the contempt in his eyes, and simply knew. He knew that Arthur was never going to forgive Matthew for defiling their pretty little family. Alfred knew in that moment that Arthur is going to do nothing in bringing Matthew back. He knew that he was in this endeavor alone.

Alfred gauged the distance between Arthur and himself. Then suddenly, he sprang out of the bed. He ran, threw himself into Arthur still sitting in his chair, knocking him down, himself landing on Arthur. "You didn't know him!" Alfred was beside himself. "You don't know the power you had over him!" He pounded his fists on Arthur's chest. "One fucking word from you! One look! And Mattie was four years old again! Crying himself to sleep! Because nothing he did, could ever, ever please you!"

Arthur was too shocked to fight back. He was frozen in place. Stunned, confused, he looked up and saw Alfred's fuming face and clenched fists. Then his hard side prevailed. Incredulous and frustrated, he jabbed Alfred in his ribs and pushed him off.

Alfred gasped and rolled over. Being wounded and weak, Arthur could overpower him easily. Torn between his fury and pain, Alfred tried to push himself up again. But his arms and legs gave up underneath him. A bone-deep tremor shook his body and his gaze went slightly hazy and unfocused.

Arthur got to his feet. All the alcohol, too, seemed to have vaporized away. He grabbed Alfred by the scruff of his neck and yanked him to his feet.

With sad laughter at his own ineffectual gesture, Alfred let himself be guided back to bed and sunk into blankets. Now he turned into that four year old child, chided, crying himself to sleep. He curled in on himself, clenching his teeth together, trying to ward off the pain by sheer force of will. A red stain began to form on his side.

Arthur made a gesture towards him. "Have you calmed down?" He spoke calmly, quietly, to Alfred. "Shall I call Gilbert to patch you up again?"

Alfred raised his head, eyes locked on Arthur. "Matthew was running after you his whole life. And it was never enough for you, was it? Was it!" A shiver ran through his frame.

"Matthew never needed my approval to find his worth... and yet. He still craved it. Soft-hearted git." Arthur said, irritated that Alfred still hadn't dropped the topic, and reached out to touch him.

Alfred recoiled from Arthur's hands. "Don't you dare say that!" he hissed. "People whom I care about disappear around me, and there is nothing I can do about it. This is what angers me the most. Does that not bother you?"

Arthur sighed and tucked him in.

"I guess you're the only one left standing when everything else falls down. You're the only one who can be changed by nothing." Alfred gritted out, streaked with cold sweat and a new wave of weakness.

Looking a little bit affronted, Arthur nodded. "I'll be right back." He turned, walked to the door and put his hand on the handle, hesitating. "In the meantime, let it go, Alfred. I know that you are tired. I know that you think of the ones you lost. This is war. Get used to it." He lingered there for a beat and then left.

Alfred was left alone, sulking, ruminating on his situation. If he had the strength, he would succumb to rage again before despair took him. He would tear and break every single thing in this room before settling on a customary flurry of motion mixed with resigned sullenness. Instead, he began to snivel and sob where he lay.

* * *

When Arthur came back, he was carrying fresh water and bandages. He poured water into a washbowl and motioned to Alfred to tuck up the blankets and his shirt. Arthur began changing the bandages and cleaning away the blood. They sat in silence, neither one finding words.

While Arthur was tending the wound in his side, Alfred stared past him, looking at the flames in the fireplace. "I'll leave in the morning." Cold cloth touched his bare skin and he shivered at the sudden chill. "I ha-have to." His voice stuttered.

"You're in no condition to ride," Arthur spoke softly.

"I have to, I...," Alfred uttered hesitatingly, and passed out.

Arthur caught him by the shoulders so he wouldn't falter and fall off the bed, and continued with his work. When he was done, he covered Alfred with blankets again, and laid a fatherly hand on his chest. "A man's life is difficult. More so if he has to bear the fate of an entire nation on his shoulders" When Arthur finally spoke, his voice was weak, muffled through the alcohol and the returning fatigue, but unmistakably sad. "A memory cannot be erased, I know. I know that, because I have tried."

Alfred muttered something in response in his sleep and Arthur couldn't help but smile. Something in Arthur's stomach thawed and the strife that had bubbled up inside him left him. "Sleep, my darling boy." His smile widened the slightest bit.

* * *

Alfred was dreaming, floating in an in-between state of consciousness, swaddled in a cocoon of blankets.

The darkness faded slowly. The morning came, warm and sweet. A cacophony of birds and insects. Swamp maples and willows formed a canopy over moss-covered mounds and pools of plant-choked water. Matthew sat under a spreading beech not far off a dirt road. A musket was resting in his lap.

Suddenly Matthew stood, looking out, seeing something. He knew the sound of hooves. He took off, dropping the musket, running, racing toward the road. Then he saw him: Alfred, riding at a full gallop.

Alfred saw him too. He cried out with tears of joy, spurred his horse and hurried toward him, riding along a dry path that snaked through the swamps. A soft wind blew some dry leaves along the ground. Alfred galloped through them. Then he crossed a narrow land bridge, slowed down, and without fully stopping the horse, he dismounted.

They stood together, hesitating, their bodies close, then embraced, hugging deeply but a bit awkwardly, holding each other just a moment longer than one would expect. Matthew looked up at Alfred. Alfred kissed him on the tip of his nose, and Matthew wrapped himself around him. Enveloped in their embrace, they locked eyes.

"I know I'm not strong," Alfred whispered.

Matthew shook his head. "Yes, you are."

Alfred winced. "Matthew... I let you go..."

Matthew sighed. "Don't blame yourself, you did what you were made to do." Gently, he disentangled himself from Alfred and turned to Alfred´s horse to give him a pat on the neck. "And yet, you still saw it in your heart to come."

Alfred watched his brother for a while, then joined him. "You are in my heart forever." He put his arm around him. "But you deserve to have your own life. A better life. You deserve to be young."

Matthew examined Alfred's face for a moment. "We deserve to be young together."

"Matthew, we belong to a fairy tale that can never be. I played my part in this mess and I am sorry. You would be better off without me."

Matthew was silent; he just stared at Alfred.

"This love is broken."

"It can be mended." Matthew took a step closer to Alfred. "I don't think I would have been better off without you," he spoke very softly, very slowly, very clearly. "You are not what went wrong with anything. You were what saved me. I want to thank you for that. Alright?"

Alfred felt every word. He froze in place. For an eternity no one moved, no one spoke. The only sounds were their excited breathing and the rustle of dead leaves blown along the ground by a soft wind.

Alfred grabbed Matthew's arm and pulled them close together. "I was young... and stupid. I watched helplessly as you turned around and left. I still carry the pain, so deep that even you could not bury it if you tried. A part of me died when I let you go." The words were tumbling from him as fast as he could get them out. "I would trade all the days for one chance, just one chance, to come back where I belong, to you and tell you I am yours." Matthew's face was an inch away from his own. Alfred's eyes were filling with tears. His arms were wrapped around his brother, pleading.

Matthew tightened the embrace, saying, "You will," and covered Alfred's face with kisses. "You will find a way to make it back to me."

Alfred was just looking at him, unsure of what to say or do, feeling the hot tears streaming down his face.

The soft wind blew. A dry leaf got caught in Matthew's sandy hair. Matthew's eyes darted as if something was coming. "Dress up warmly for tomorrow. It is going to snow."

Alfred looked and listened but couldn't see, nor hear anything. "How do you know?"

Matthew gave Alfred the warmest smile. "I'm Canadian, I know everything about snow." Then he gently eased Alfred away. "Sleep, now. When you come around, I'll be here for you."

The temperatures dropped and Alfred slept.

To let go, he couldn't.

To be continued…

Bavaria


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How could something this beautiful be a crime punishable by hanging? He wants me, Alfred realized, he loves me, not as brothers love each other but as lovers do. //HumanAU;UsCan;Another one of my Love&War fics, this time set in the French and Indian War//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Hetalia does not belong to me. This story does though ;) Many thanks to my wonderful beta-editor NightlySnow, she did some great editing. Guys, if you love Arthur and Gilbert in the upcoming two chapters, you have to thank her ;)

Never, never, I return:  
Still for victory I burn.  
Living, thee alone I'll have;  
And when dead I'll be thy grave.

Thro the Heaven and Earth and Hell  
Thou shalt never, quell:  
I will fly and thou pursue:  
Night and morn the flight renew.

William Blake

Alfred hadn't seen the sun in two weeks. Days were dull and nights even worse. Lost in thought, he couldn't find his rest. For every time he closed his eyes, his mind wandered to hundreds of different places, and none of them were home.

Or, if he dreamed, he dreamed about Matthew. These were no pleasant dreams, however. He saw him die a thousand deaths, burning with fever while alone in the forest and surrounded by redcoats. He imagined him careening around the trees, wounded, weak and falling, the blood running from a gash in his head. The lurid images filled Alfred’s mind and woke him brutally, leaving him shivering and pathetically frightened.

One night, barely standing on his feet, Alfred was wandering through the encampment, which the ragged army had spread around the mason house. He headed away from the house now glowing from the lights of candles and oil lamps. Freezing cold wind was blowing beneath the endless dark blue sky. Alfred paused as if listening to a spoken reply. Looking up at the night sky, he counted five-finger lengths up from the front two stars of the Big Dipper. That was the North Star.

 _The same one you’re looking at somewhere right now?_ Alfred wondered.

On a night like this, he would wrap Matthew in warm blankets. They would hold each other all-night, whispering, sighing and panting, the surf of their love growling and pulling and growling, tongues and fingers, gentle and tentative in the dark. Alfred kissing Matthew, Matthew kissing him back. Alfred lifting himself and kissing the nape of Matthew’s neck. Matthew playing with Alfred’s hair, pulling at it as Alfred moves and places his kisses lower and lower... a lush pliant buttock in Alfred’s hand and a hard nipple in his mouth in the cool late autumn night...

_Matthew’s fingers curl in the bed sheets as Alfred’s move across Matthew’s belly. Matthew, excited and writhing, and muffling his moans with the back of his hand or against Alfred’s shoulder, as he approaches orgasm..._

Alfred looked away, relieved that he was still alive, but overwhelmed with an almost intolerable sadness. He couldn’t say how long he had been walking. It was fully dark by the time he found Lovino sitting in his tent, stooping over his younger brother. Feliciano was lying on a stretcher, carefully covered up to his chin with a coarse, brown blanket. A single candle was burning.  
When Alfred entered the tent, exhausted, Lovino looked closely at him, asking with his eyes why Alfred was there.

Alfred remained silent, standing with his arms at his sides, not responding to Lovino. Instead, his gaze shifted to Feliciano. Feliciano looked as if he were sleeping. Only when Alfred drew closer did he spot the wound on the younger Italian’s neck and another one beneath his ribs. Where his right eye and upper right temple should have been there was nothing but a bloody swelling, the result of a club or the butt of a musket. It had gorged a massive laceration deep into the flesh. It was clear the blood had once poured freely from the wound too, smearing along the right side of Feliciano’s face, from his head and all the way down to his neck, like an obscure shadow, now dried up and blackened.

Lovino was still in the process of cleaning his younger brother's body. "I loved you so much, Feli," he sobbed, "Why didn’t I tell you? Why? Damn fool. Damn fool!" he cried out. He lowered his head to his chest, gripping at his hair with his fingers. His frame wracked with furious, heartbroken sobs. "I co-couldn't sa-save y-you." He tried to force every bit of hitch out of his breath and failed miserably.

"None of us could have," Alfred replied dryly.

Suddenly, Lovino stood in front of Alfred, dark and cool in his blue uniform. His eyes shone with reflected candle fire, his jaw clenched hard as iron. "Don’t you have something better to do just like stand around here?"

"I'm so sorry. I'm so very sorry," Alfred spoke softly to the Italian. He reached out to embrace Lovino.

But Lovino shrugged Alfred away. "Don’t touch me!"

"Lovino, please..."

"Don’t you dare... Don’t you dare say another word. I don’t want to hear it! Keep your stupid excuses to yourself!"

"I don’t understand, my friend..."

"I’m not your friend. Not yours, nor Arthur’s. It’s all your fault. This army that you both put together would make my grandmother laugh. But so is Arthur, pretending not to love his money or himself more than those poor fuckers dying for him... but he is. I hate him."

"You don't hate him." Alfred tried to cover his reaction but it was apparent that he was taken aback by Lovino's icy words. "He’s a good person... he’s just... misunderstood sometimes. There’s a lot on his shoulders, you know? He too had to sacrifice a lot. Don’t... Don’t talk trash about him behind his back."

Lovino laughed out, though his eyes were filled with tears. "I don't care. I still hate him. I tried very hard to believe in him, I did, and I had almost no success."

Alfred didn't get a chance to refute Lovino's statement, because when he was ready to snap back, with what he’d thought to be perfectly calculated words meant to cut and shred, Lovino returned to Feliciano’s stretcher, sagged down onto a hard wooden camp chair, and began gently patting the pale stone cold face of his dead brother. And Alfred’s heart sank.

"Feli believed in him... And look where it brought him. You know what Arthur said to me the other day? He came here just like you did, pretended compassion, even though it looked more like pity, and said ´I'll help you bury him.´ Can you believe that? The fuck he will. Fuck. Damn his eyes."

Lovino had not raised his voice, yet Alfred could see the anger in the hazel of his eyes. "I’m sure he meant what he said."

Lovino made no reply, at first, save with his look. It was a long one, strangely empty of expression. Alfred could see that it was not what he had wanted to hear. Arthur could be heartless, Alfred knew that, but Lovino could be too. Arthur broke some other kids, reducing them to tears and humiliation; when he did that, his eyes seemed to recede under his brow and his lips curled into a smile, as if he'd discovered the point at which he could destroy pride and will.

And Lovino was just about to do the same. "Look here, princess Jasmine. I’m not afraid of Arthur or his little sneak," Lovino winked at Alfred. "You can march to him right now and quote my exact words, for all I care! In regards to how grotesque the Brit is, I believe, yes, it has given me the right to talk shit behind his back. And I’ll tell you something more. He’s cheap, his clothes are old and you can taste pretense on his breath. Oh, and I really hope that after all this is over, he’ll pack his bags and leave and never come back. The same applies to you, you spoiled ass."

Lovino pulled the chair underneath him as close to Feliciano’s stretcher as he could and cradled Feliciano’s face like a child’s, caressing his dead sibling’s cheek, and watching over him as if he were sleeping. He pulled the blanket up and around Feliciano and whispered something in Italian to the corpse, before finally kissing his forehead.

They’d been out at the killing fields, watching conscripts die, hearing the anguished cries of the wounded. They were all very young, but their faces were hardening and they had stories they were proud to tell, although many would not get the chance, such as Feli. What must it have been like for him? His last moments spent lying helplessly in the dirt, cold, trembling, drowning in his blood. What must it have been like for Lovino? Watching his only brother die. Trying to hold the blood in, but to no avail...

Not a day goes by when I wouldn't think of you. Alfred’s brow furrowed. Something came up. _Images._

* * *

Alfred was waiting for Matthew outside the church. An icy wind was blowing off the river,the streets dark and shiny, as if they'd been glazed. Then Matthew appeared.

"Mattie, I..."

"Come on," Matthew said, and took Alfred by the elbow.

They went to the nearest pub and drank and laughed and drank and stayed until morning. They had breakfast, scrambled eggs on a plate and buttered rye toast,their faces tired but happy and shining. The winter light was throwing cold shapes on the walls. They borrowed two blankets and pulled them each over their shoulders before beginning to eat greedily. The bartender brought them two steaming cups of tea.

Matthew sipped carefully and then looked at Alfred in a forlorn manner. "I'll be going away," he said.

 "No," Alfred said. "We'll stay here. We don’t have to go home yet. Maybe we can go for a walk, take out the horses and ride, or something."

 "I have to work today. Besides, I wasn't talking about today." Matthew got up and poured himself the first whiskey of the morning.

 "I didn’t know you were drinking...?"

 "Temporary insanity," Matthew said, and smiled. He stared into the glass. "I think you both want me to go."

 "No," Alfred said. "Never. You are my little brother and I love you. I won't let you say goodbye."

 Matthew lit a cigarette and sipped from the drink. "Love gets everything all screwed up."

* * *

_Whispers._ Whispers of soldiers passing by. What kind of a man of his age had not got a woman by him in his bed? Alfred was hiding a dark secret that no one could ever know.

Alfred’s scowl deepened and he pulled himself out of his dark reverie. "Sometimes we love people so much we have to be numb to it. Because if we actually felt how much we love them, it would kill us. That doesn't make you a bad person. It just means your heart's too big. Feliciano knew that."

The life too was draining from Lovino. No anger anymore. Only pain. He looked absentmindedly at Alfred, lost in a dream, an incomprehensible nightmare of loss and overwhelming emptiness.

"I know you’re hurting, we all do. But God damn you to Hell, Lovino. You’re Arthur’s lieutenant. He picked you because he trusted you. Now we have a job to do. And we will mourn for our friends. We will. But, we will do it later." And with that he left, leaving Lovino alone with his shadows.

As Alfred stepped outside, he felt his heart aching more and more with every movement. He paused, turned his head over his shoulder... Lovino wasn’t following him. Alfred felt a numbness in his face. He thought Lovino would come bursting out of the tent any second now, his mouth full of dirty words, and his fists flying. Alfred imagined Lovino's eyes wide with rage, imagined him coming at him... Instead... The flaps blew in the tent’s opening. The soft candlelight was glowing inside. All appeared peaceful. Then Lovino started to sob again. His sobs slowly rose into a keening wail, and Alfred watched as Lovino hid his face in his hands.

Alfred returned to the house, to his bed. He would lie alone there, dark, weary and heartsick, feeling as if he were a character in a story that had lost its plot. "The things we love destroy us every time," he muttered under his breath. He tried to remember Matthew’s face, tried to imagine his brother’s familiar form wrapped in his arms, tried to imagine kissing him, whispering that his skin smells good before pressing his nose against his cheek and breathing him in, feeling Matthew’s hot body wrapped around him Alfred imagined pleasuring his brother, imagined letting Matthew enter him... And together, they would cross the sweet, sweet, forbidden line.

Alfred felt a stirring in his groin. It was no good. He closed his eyes, clenching his teeth hard. If only he could fall asleep. Only in his hopes and daydreams did he see everything as it was before. Alfred swallowed hard and was very much aware of how hot his face was getting. He tried to steady himself on the bed, tried to be calm. Instead, he sensed Matthew’s presence, though he wasn’t there with him. He saw the mental image of Matthew looking at him, at his face and shoulders and belly and legs and cock, and then he could feel his own cock getting hard.

He'd touched himself before, but nothing had ever been as pleasurable as that moment, hiding under the blankets, away from everyone, thinking of Matthew. His hand moved slowly. The thought of his younger brother, his bare skin glistening with sweat, his muscles flexing in time with Alfred’s thrusts, his blue eyes, dark and glazed...

Alfred tried to stop it then, shifting his imaginings, trying to will it away; but he only got harder. He gripped his cock more tightly. It was such a powerful, potent fantasy that Alfred had to bite down on his lower lip to keep from crying out Matthew’s name.

It was too much too quickly. Alfred started to come. Violently. His body erupted with pleasure, his pelvis thrust up off the bed and his hand held on as an involuntary roar rose from his throat. Then silence.

 _Fool,_ Alfred thought to himself afterward. _What are you doing? Will you never learn, you idiot?_

He lay amidst the rumpled and sagging blankets, trapped inside his own mind, afraid to open his eyes to what he'd find. Only himself. Lying in bed. Alone.

But when his fingers trailed over his heart, he felt its beat, strong and steady, and that was a good feeling.

A million miles had led him to this place, and if he had to walk a million miles more? So be it, so long as they lead him to Matthew.

Alfred had never felt so alive. Living was more important than dying; loving a man was more important than loving a country

_I keep living for the day that I'm with you. And when the time comes, I'll wrap you in my arms and I won't let go. We will live the life that we deserve to have._

It was the last thing he thought of before, at last, the powerful current of dreams pulled him under. And then the world was mercifully gone.

* * *

Cold, gray-blue shimmer, and the muted sounds of the morning filtered in from the outside world, and Alfred began waking up.A hideous scream followed by a gunshot pierced the calm. _Holy shit!_ Alfred was instantly awake. His eyes snapped open, the heavy curtain of sleepiness swept away by vigilance. Clumsily, he clambered out of bed, one leg still caught in the blankets, and knocked over a nearby chair. It fell down with a clatter.

Without pausing, Alfred wrenched a tomahawk from the nightstand by the fireplace, and bolted out of his room, down the hall, and into an adjacent storage room, which had been a kitchen before, and which Arthur now used for interrogating the captured Frenchmen.

Alfred barged through the door: A white-haired man dressed in a pitch black uniform wheeled around and faced him.

Rivulets of blood ran along the planks in the floor, disappearing into narrow gaps between the boards. Blood was smeared on one wall, where a corpse lay in a jumbled mass of ripped flesh and broken bones on the floor. Another Frenchman was tied, spread-eagle, to the only table in the room, showing the terrible effects of protracted torture. A fresh hole between the man's eyes gazed at Alfred.

"I knew it was you," Alfred declared, making hostile eye contact with Gilbert and his smoking barrel.

"Hello, little girl. Welcome to my castle." Gilbert received him with a dramatic bow. "I am Prussian, and you are not." He swung his free arm and brought a blade out of nowhere and flung it across the room and into the wall behind Alfred, watching with a grin how the blonde lurched away from it, nearly knocking himself over. "Good. Good," Gilbert approved. "Your reflexes are getting better. That’s a very good sign."

Startled and stunned at the carnage, trying to catch his breath, Alfred noticed an old canvas against the far wall, leaning against the windowsill. Someone had sketched in a naked young woman. Her heart was outside the skin of her chest. Everything was blue, even the heart. Alfred marveled at the thought. This was someone’s home. Before they came in,before Gilbert made it a slaughterhouse, it had been a home. When Alfred turned back to Gilbert, his heart was pounding, his hands wet.

Gilbert gestured with his pistol toward the corpse on the table.“I’m sorry he died," he said with feigned contrition. "I will have to get myself another one." He blew the residual powder out of the barrel of his pistol and shoved it back into the holster on his belt.

The image of Gilbert trying to stop the blood pouring out of his stomach kept Alfred from throwing the tomahawk he was clenching in his hand between Gilbert’s contemptuous eyes. Alfred tried focusing on the bloodied floor beneath his feet, playing over and over again in his head what he actually wanted to do. He had never put too much time into planning and strategy. Never considered details. Then again, in his experience, life never seemed to enjoy following a script.

Alfred clenched his jaw and fists in his effort to remain calm, and then threw himself at Gilbert.

Alfred's sudden movement knocked Gilbert off balance and the two fell hard to the floor.

Furiously, Alfred dug the tomahawk into the wooded floor as if it were butter as he grabbed Gilbert from behind, just refraining from seriously hurting him. Much.

Gilbert sensed how Alfred’s muscles flexed and tensed as he tried to keep them both steady.

Then instinct took over where conscious action was failing. Gilbert began reaching for his hip where he kept the sidearm.Maybe he could knock Alfred out with the butt of the pistol, but Alfred foresaw the action and grabbed his hand forcefully, immediately staying it. A strange thought occurred to Gilbert then. It almost made him laugh. "I do... I do remember the first man I killed. It was a French spy in Danzig one night, near the end of the siege. I did him in his sleep. His breath had a stale sweet smell, like dried wine," he marveled at the memory. "I locked my fingers in his hair to keep him down. He purred something in his sleep. Then I got a knife and slit his throat," he stressed each of those last words.

Alfred panicked at the mention of the knife and cutthroat. With incredible strength and sheer insanity Gilbert shoved him hard and quickly tore free, kicking at Alfred as he fell to the floor face forward.

"Blood exploded over my skin and that was when his eyes snapped open," Gilbert added and fell forward into Alfred and wrapped his arms around the American and took hold of his shirt from behind. "So I grabbed him by the hem," he continued, his voice getting violent, "and stabbed him until we were both bloody. And then, he stopped jerking."

"Damn you! Let go!" Alfred was struggling to dislodge Gilbert, swinging his arms, but Gilbert wouldn't let go. Alfred’s body was beginning to feel lucid under the weight. Alfred felt so far away from himself, he couldn't seem to breathe deeply enough anymore.

Gilbert was looking down at his opponent, never loosening his iron grip on him. He leaned in and hissed in Alfred’s ear, "That Frenchman had truly made me feel as if I had opened a curtain and glimpsed Hell." Gilbert pushed him away.

And Alfred felt strangely calm all of a sudden. Calm and numb and out of breath. He blindly reached out and felt the German's hands grabbing onto him, to his own surprise, not attacking but supporting.

Gilbert’s face was tight, eyes blistering. "God damn you, Alfred. What were you doing?" He let go of the American and pulled him away, stepping back in anticipation of a retaliation.

"I'm still trying to figure it out." Alfred looked around now, taking his time. "What the Hell!" Like ice, he looked Gilbert up and down.

"Come here and I will show you, du Sohn einer blutpissenden Hafenhure!"

Alfred shrugged. "I don't bark German."

"Those Hodenkobolts don't use book-solid tactics, Sonnenschein," Gilbert spat, venom dripping from every word. "They have learned their lessons well! They have learned to fight like savages. Our men consider themselves lucky if they die a swift death. If they end up in their hands..." He left the sentence unfinished. "And I intend to do the same damn thing."

Alfred shook his head for himself and wrenched free his tomahawk from the floor. "To do what? To mutilate and murder?"

"We captured the colonel, you know, the one you failed to shoot. He took care of my agenda for that afternoon, and later two of their scouts." Gilbert studied Alfred's anguished face and offered the barest of smiles. "And all I heard was the singing and the laughing. So I talked to Arthur, and he said 'Hit them hard if you must, but get what you can out of them. And if they keep talking like this, shoot them!'"

"That doesn't make it right!" Alfred planted his tomahawk into the table with a thud. "There are rules, even in war!"

"Oh, would you like a lesson in the rules of war?" Gilbert offered, calmly, bathing in Alfred's anger. "Go and take a look outside. Last night, there was a skirmish on a road not very far from here. We sent a number of riders out to search for supplies. They were just returning when the French intercepted them. We had rushed in relief after one of ours came home. But we were too late. We found them in pieces, even the horses, with their heads on stakes." Gilbert grew quieter with the memory of how bad it was. "Two of my boys, barely alive, we brought home." Gilbert shook his head to himself. "Though, they kept their fingers, eyes, and tongues."

"So these two," Alfred gestured, his temper exploding, "deserved no less." 

"They slaughtered entire villages at the beginning of this war, and I doubt, since then, that they have gained any in wisdom or humanity," Gilbert said angrily, then quickly changed his expression, and smiled. "These two were lying and calling me names. I don't take it well when people do that."

Alfred quickly moved. He cracked Gilbert in the face, practically knocking him down with one shot. A bleeding Gilbert struggled to his hands and knees, cursing through his bloodied teeth, and before Alfred could react, Gilbert got behind him, and kicked him in his knee. Alfred sank with a groan as a punch hit his nose. He felt a strange numbness in his face, then a sharp pain on the side of his head as Gilbert threw another punch. With his last tatters of sanity Alfred had left he put his left elbow advertently into Gilbert's stomach, sending him quickly to the floor. They both stopped, breathing hard.

Alfred, lips bloodied, slowly began to rise. A sweaty Gilbert pulled him close. "What is it going to be, Alfred?" he asked somewhat threateningly.

Alfred stared at him, sensing something harder. "What is what going to be?" Blood trickled out of his mouth and down his chin.

Gilbert grabbed Alfred harder, "I will go, if you want to. Pistols, swords, cords, knives, bare stones..." and shook him, "...you decide. I will fight you with anything you bloody like!"

The two stared each other down: a shared look exceeding competitive boundary, a shared look filled with rage.

Alfred spat out blood. "I will not duel with you, Gilbert."

"Of course you will not." Gilbert let Alfred go with a shove. "I would take you down. I'd be doing these colonies a great fucking favor, let me tell you."

Alfred thought to himself and smiled in Gilbert’s face, his chin now entirely smeared with blood. "What's the matter, Gil?" He wiped the blood away with the back of his hand. "You’ve been acting too cocky lately... even by your standards. Has your ale stock run dry? You're terrible when sober. You should find a barrel, meet a cracking filly and grease the passage."

Gilbert erupted with laughter, his eyes red. "I really hate you with a passion sometimes," he exclaimed, pointing his finger. "I am glad you made it back though. I was not too sure I was going to see you again. Alive, I mean." Then he grew more serious. "Don’t get me wrong. I loved seeing Arthur sit by your sickbed, drunk and weeping like a little babygirlmanboy... but... these are bad times, Alfred. I am quite used to seeing my friends in coffins or scattered on a field. But you know how I get."

Alfred spat out some more blood. "First, filled with hatred, then with regret."

"If I want your fucking opinion I will ask for it, Dummkopf."

Alfred braced himself on the table with the corpse, stared at his somewhat bitter opponent, and said nothing. Alfred remembered… He remembered his stupidity in trying to impress Arthur or for whatever reason he always had been the first in line, the most eager, and the most courageous. His stupidity in being too sure of himself and lowering his guard and leaving himself exposed. He remembered his weakness – Matthew – a mistake that had almost cost him his life. The battle. When he met his target – the French colonel, and Matthew’s ghost, who nearly killed him. He had the man in his sights and couldn't pull the trigger because he didn't think he could live with killing... Who? Matthew?

Alfred remembered being pinned down in that forest. Fire in his stomach. Drought in his lungs. Arthur... And now? Seemingly back from the dead because his friends saved him. He had completely failed them then. He had completely failed Arthur then. That very notion of it could kill him faster than the bullet in his gut.

Alfred reached out and grabbed onto Gilbert's uniform. "Being your friend is the greatest challenge," he said and swept past Gilbert and through the door.

"Hey wait." Gilbert smiled and followed him out of the room. "I forgot to say something dickish to you."

Alfred turned and saw Gilbert looking down at him and handing him the tomahawk.

"You want your command back? Well, that is an easy one. Go to Arthur, get on your knees, kiss his arse, sing, drink, eat and go to bed. We move out tomorrow."

Alfred took the tomahawk from Gilbert, "Thank you, Gil," and stuck it behind his belt. "That is a great idea. How come I didn’t think of it myself?" He threw up his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

"Because you’re not as awesome as me." Gilbert folded his arms across his chest proudly. "Besides. All of my ideas are the best." Then his face-hardened. "There will be plenty of riding, waving swords, raiding French supply convoys in the woods, shooting dispatch riders, sneaking up on pickets, burning bridges... You’ll get your chance, I promise. And I will back you up. But," he raised his pointer finger, "the next time you feel like fucking up," he raised his thumb and made a finger gun, "God help me, l’ll kill you myself," and shot him.

"Careful, Gil, of the two of us, I am the better marksman."

To be continued...

Bavaria

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How could something this beautiful be a crime punishable by hanging? He wants me, Alfred realized, he loves me, not as brothers love each other but as lovers do. //HumanAU;UsCan;Another one of my Love&War fics, this time set in the French and Indian War//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Hetalia does not belong to me. This story does though ;) Beta-edited by the lovely and amazing NightlySnow ^_^

'And, to end thy cruel mocks, 

Annihilate thee on the rocks, 

And another form create 

To be subservient to my fate. 

‘Let us agree to give up love, 

And root up the Infernal Grove; 

Then shall we return and see 

The worlds of happy Eternity 

William Blake 

Day broke. A thick, morning mist lay low over the encampment. Alfred strode through the camp, passing nervous sentries and a hastily built medical tent, which was surrounded by pools of blood; a reminiscence of last night.

_We’re_ _no better,_ Alfred thought, and shook his head to chase away the image of Gilbert murdering those two Frenchmen. Alfred was still off-balance from the meeting with Gilbert this early morning, but determined to talk to Arthur. He spotted him surrounded by his lieutenants at a makeshift command post in a linen tent, barking orders, pulling things together. Arthur saw him too and offered a familiar nod, which Alfred returned, stone-faced. The group looked over and met Alfred's hard glare. Alfred was very much aware that they must have noticed the bruises and dried blood on his face, though no one seemed to care.

Arthur spoke, simply and clearly: "Antonio, detail men for outriders. We move out as soon as the wounded are ready. We have been here, wasting our time for too long now." Arthur looked tired and vigorous, a hardened veteran, marked with the blood and dirt of a recent battle. And armed to the teeth. A Brown Bess was slung over his shoulder, a sword and a dagger on his belt. "This hideout is no longer safe."

The Lieutenant saluted and rushed off.

Arthur rolled out a map for the remaining officers. "Corporal!"

Alfred leaped in. "Sir! What are my orders?"

Arthur leaned on his campaign table and drummed his fingers. "Fetch me some breakfast," he shouted for all to hear. "Then meet me in the backyard."

Alfred found Arthur's words a bitter pill to swallow, but said nothing, ducked out of the tent and obeyed.

* * *

Arthur shoved the last bite of breakfast into his mouth and sipped from his cup of tea. "You’re angry with me," he observed.

Alfred wrinkled his nose and rubbed at his forehead, but kept his focus on molding bullets.

They sat in the backyard, alone at last, by the embers of last night's campfire. All the other men were already awake, some ate, some talked. Two women who were traveling with Gilbert’s German soldiers were picking fallen apples into big wicker baskets.

Arthur finished his tea staring at an unopened bottle of French red wine that someone forgot by the fire. "If you don't want to speak to me now, that's alright..." he hesitated, "... alright with me. We’ll talk later." He rose and headed over to the men.

Alfred took a bullet from the mold and put it on a stone to cool down. He watched Arthur from the distance. Arthur walked among the men, looking from face to face, nodding familiarly to several, surveying his brigade. Redcoats, fishermen, farmers, mountain men, Germans.

Arthur had a great walk, quick, rhythmic, taut with authority, as he moved without hellos across the encampment to the stakes with bound horses at the far end, dressed in his redcoat uniform, with high black riding boots, carrying his arms. His face was gray, urban, Socratic, his mouth pulled tight into an unreadable mask, his blond hair waving in the breeze, and he wore that three-horn-hat which he shoved to his forehead while inspecting the troops. No one could ever guess what was going on beneath that steely cold veneer.

Just as Alfred collected all the bullets and put them into his pouch and attached it to his weapons' belt, Arthur was returning. He called him and jerked his head for him to follow him. Together they walked over the backyard. Once out of sight of the men, Arthur lost his command bearing. "This is great!" he exclaimed with exasperation. "No surprise though... the meeting ended once again without any resolution. Gilbert doesn't want to move the wounded. Blast all! This is not a democracy! This is war! I really do wish there was someone around here who I did not have to always fight with. Seriously, they are all nut-burgers! What am I to do with them?"

"You could always accuse them of cowardice and flog them, you know?" Alfred offered.

They exchanged a look and Arthur gestured towards a barn, distant, guarded and well hidden behind a bulge. "I would like you to meet someone."

Alfred's face wrinkled. "My ghost," he answered in one breath.

Arthur grinned, "Oh, what a smart boy you are," and gestured for the sentry to open the doors.

The iron latch was lifted and placed to rest against one of the splinted walls supporting an even more cracked roof. The doors opened slowly with a long, lasting crack. Accompanied by a wave of sunlight colliding with clusters of dust Alfred took one slow step inside, flanked by Arthur.

The French colonel was all but a bloody figure, his hands tied behind his back, saggy, broken, and battered, in dirty and torn white and blue uniform. His pale face, once cherubic, handsome, aristocratic, now bloodied, strained and tired. But his eyes, his eyes were cunning.

"Hello, Francis." Arthur took a flintlock pistol from his holster and sat down onto a stool placed before the French colonel. He rested the pistol on his thigh: a beautiful piece, mahogany wood, and bronze engravings, produced for an occasion.

Alfred noticed that, face-to-face with the gun, _Francis_ paled to an even whiter shade of white.

"You poor, poor, deluded man," Arthur continued, "misguided, and troublesome… but not dangerous… not anymore. Once, you have asked me about my resolve." He paused and started to prime the pistol. "In the forest, we advanced three times and killed almost fifty of your men at point blank range. We took your ground and your cannons. And now," he looked at the Frenchman’s anguished face and offered the barest of smiles, "we’re going to take your lives," he trained the pistol at his prisoner. "That is the measure of my resolve."

Francis didn't answer, he was looking at Arthur coldly, taking his measure, probably, waiting to see if Arthur was going to pull the trigger. Arthur was likely thinking over every scenario, every twist, and whether or not he could make this situation beneficial to him.

"We will free the American soil of the French, Francis," Arthur flared out. The malevolence in his voice was perceivable. "We will destroyed you. We will beat your little army to pulp. So what is your plan? To tame more wildlings? To come up with a new host? Where? How?"

The French colonel spat down to Arthur’s feet. "Je préfère mettre mon pied dans ma bouche."

Arthur laughed out, calmly bathing in the Frenchman's anger. "Does anyone here bark French?" He looked around, shifting his aim, the sentries shook their heads impassively and Alfred tossed Arthur a discontented look.

"No one. You’re alone, Francis, a little, alone, green frog." Arthur propped his chin with the one free hand and stared at the prisoner's face haunted by shadows. "I see. You’ve decided that you're not going to talk to me. Very well. I came here so we could chew the fat for an hour or so, so you would not feel too lonely." He picked the loading rod of the pistol and with great care extracted the bullet out of the barrel. He sighed. "Darn, Francis, you make my life difficult." It had been truly amazing how Arthur could master anything with the ease of an Englishman, if he had put his mind in it, his temper including. "I will leave you now, my friend, to your misery," he said calmly. "And in the morning, if you’re still unwilling to cooperate, I’ll give you a taste of committed justice, I promise you that." He stood, and nonchalantly blew out the powder of the barrel and holstered the pistol, resembling Gilbert very much in Alfred’s mind. "And you know that I am a gentleman and I keep my promises."

Before Arthur left, he turned to Alfred and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Be so kind and give the Frog a pint of water," he pointed into a corner to a barrel with a wooden ladle placed on the rim. "So he doesn’t perish before I’m done with him."

Alfred watched Arthur disappear around the entrance to the barn, and began, didn’t know why exactly, talking to the French colonel, "Arthur was a wealthy man. The last thing he wanted was a war."

Francis, his hands achingly bound behind him, looked at Alfred with a combination of resoluteness and disdain.

Alfred propped his musket against the wall. "He was rich and powerful and he came to lead this campaign: one that upturned his privileged life upside down," and brought water. He crouched down beside the Frenchman and put the ladle to his chapped lips. "We will never return to what we had before."

Francis locked eyes with him. "Merci." He drank thankfully. "Merci." And greedy. He coughed, recovered, and sipped. And started to cough incessantly.

"You’re welcome." Alfred gave him a pat on his back.

"Just put me out of my misery."

"You'll be alright. It's cold in here, no wonder you’re sick. I will bring you blankets. And something to break your fast."

Francis shook his head and coughed once again and spitted red onto his breeches. "Jesus, I think a lung just came up."

"It’s from your broken teeth."

"Ah."

Alfred added apologetically, "He wasn’t like this always, you know. He lived by what he heard. He had his principles." Instantly, he rebuked himself for how pathetically stupid this had to sound to the Frenchman, and backed away.

But Francis smiled back. "Ah. That is, of course, your humble point of view. But yes, among other things, I suppose. Such a man becomes a legend." His smile rose into a grin. "Or a lunatic." And then he gave a laughter. "In Arthur’s case, he was predisposed by Mother Nature to behave like a twat sometimes."

Alfred gave him a wry smile. "You were friends."

"Associates. We don’t very much fall into the concept of friendship. Sharing a dinner or even have a smart talk about lousy weather with some redcoat would make me gassy."

Taking aback by the friendly approach, Alfred nervously played with the ladle, tossed it from the right hand to the left. "I’m sorry."

"Francis."

"I’m sorry, Francis."

Francis nodded. "Me too. Alfred, is it? Ugly business, doing one's duty."

"Yes, ugly business," Alfred acknowledged.

"I understand hatred, Alfred. I do." Francis said grimly. "I know what's coming. Arthur will make sure that I never see the light of day again. These are very bad times." Francis thought for himself and continued. "That being said, if we had killed each other in the battle, we wouldn’t have this pleasant conversation now. Am I right?"

Alfred sat on Arthur’s camp chair, struggling with himself. _There is no honor in this._

"Frankly, you remind me of someone…” Francis continued talking but Alfred wasn’t listening anymore.

A soft wind blew a few dead leaves along the ground and through the door of the barn. Alfred looked down, noticing the leaves, hearing the wind. He listened for a moment, not paying attention to the prisoner. The war had ripped apart in weeks what had been built in years, everything he'd learned had been drained, everything he thought was right, had been erased.

"He’s about your age and looks very much like you. I love him like a son. I would like to see him again. But you know what they say, that which doesn't kill you makes you want to die. However, it is not the dying that is scary. It is the ´what if´. What if I do not die but am mortally wounded and lie in a pool of my own blood?"

Near mortifying shame and unsure of what to do next, Alfred stood and turned away, guilt-ridden. He put the ladle back in its place and leaned onto the barrel. The only sounds were Francis´ labored breathing, the rasp of the shovel outside (the wounded had not or would not live through the day) and the rustle of dead leaves blown along the ground by a soft wind. Then it hit him.

"What did you say? About your son." Alfred stared at the Frenchman, not knowing how to react.

"Well, he is, Matthew, not by blood but by everything else."

Alfred wanted to say one thing but something else came out. "He is my brother." His heart thumped in his ears like the loudest war drum. "Where… where is he?"

"Well," Francis paused and thought for a second, "at our encampment or riding out. I made him a dispatch rider."

Alfred ran his hands through his hair, a million thoughts raced through his head. "You won’t die here," he said all of a sudden. Making sure the sentries went after Arthur, he stooped over Francis and repeated: "You won’t die here. I will get you out."

Francis hesitated. "There is no certainty in times like this, mon ami." Mixtures of hope and caution on his face. "Besides, why would you do that?"

"Why not?" Alfred looked at him firmly, to make it perfectly clear that he meant what he said.

"Why... not?" Francis repeated slowly. "Why not leave me here?"

Alfred gripped Francis' arm. "To die? What kind of person would that make me?"

Francis shrugged. "Patriotic."

"Listen." Alfred strengthened himself. "I've been doing this for three years. I'm the best scout, the best horseman, the best shot, and the best scavenger. I know every deer path and swamp trail between the North and the South."

The Frenchman looked Alfred up and down. "You’ll commit treason."

Alfred contemplated the situation and pressed his tongue against his teeth. _Arthur will never forgive you for that,_ his doubt whispered. _No, he will kill you._ Alfred quashed it quickly like a mot. "To hell with that."

"To hell with that," Francis echoed. "Alright, mon ami. Iput my life into your hands. Treat it carefully."

Alfred nodded reassuringly. "Now, please, tell me about Matthew."

* * *

Alfred's musket was cleaned and polished and lay on the bed with the rest of his gear ready for departure and a small envelope marked with Arthur’s name. When he was much younger, he spent so much time hunting with that gun that it became a part of him. The Brown Bess didn't impose something alien or dangerous to him; it was a tool. And when the war came, he brought his hunting skills to a whole new level. There is no such hunt like the hunt for a man.

Despite fighting in the war, the war itself wasn't the only one thing his mind chewed on that night. It was the leaving. He couldn’t possibly hope to stay after what he was about to do. Alfred sat in his room on the wooden breastwork and gazed out of the open window. It was a cold and pitch-dark night. If there really existed something that was called the ´calm before the storm´, then Alfred could feel it.

Hurrying steps were coming from the hallway outside. Then Arthur’s voice, uttering sharp commands. That man never slept. And that, perhaps, Alfred could exploit tonight. Arthur had been busy the entire day, walking the perimeter of their encampment, posting the sentries on four points, working out aschedule, short watches, especially at night. If there ever was a chance to leave the encampment quietly and discretely, it was now.

When the din and bustle died down and no fires remained burning, the envelope went into Alfred’s jacket pocket. Alfred took his musket, together with his tomahawk and a pair of pistols, hiding it all underneath a great coat. A few apples he had found before in the backyard, he put into his knapsack. Then he walked downstairs like on any other time. Just to see Gilbert fuming and storming out of the diningroom, which served as Arthur’s private quarters.

Arthur followed Gilbert with his eyes until he disappeared. Then threw a couple of logs into the fireplace on the far side of the diningroom and sagged into a tattered couch the previous owners left before fleeing. "The two wounded have perished. Gilbert blames me for their death. He thinks I do not value his Germans’ lives like my Englishmen’s."

Alfred stepped into the light of the room. "Do you?"

The dancing flames in the fireplace crackled and threw long shadows and shafts of light across the room, playing on Arthur’s face, turning him into a ghost-like apparition.

Alfred dropped his gear carefully and joined him, sitting down on the side of the couch.

Arthur was motionless, dark, watching the flames. It was a while before he replied. "I value theirs less than mine..." his eyes shifted to Alfred’s, "... or yours."

There were several bottles scattered on the floor. Some empty, some half full. Arthur stretched and took one of the half empty ones, opened it and drank.

Alfred wanted to take it from him but Arthur shoved him away. He emptied the bottle and collapsed it on the floor. It broke into dozen shards. Arthur didn’t seem to mind, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "When people look at you, they see what they want to be. When they look at me, they see what they are," he said and laughed bitterly. "I cannot blame them, how could I?"

"That it not true."

"It is..." Arthur looked for another bottle, "... but it doesn’t matter," and was successful. "Here," he pushed the bottle into Alfred’s hand. "Drink."

"To what?"

"To this theater," Arthur made an all-encompassing gesture. "The world is what it is, Alfred; a stage where every man must play a part. And mine is a glorious one." He thought aloud, idly running a finger across his chin. "With a pompous finale. One day, if I must die, I will encounter darkness boldly, and embrace it in my arms."

It made Alfred twist inside. Nonetheless, "Madeira," Alfred exchanged with Arthur an impressed look, rolled up his sleeves and drank.

"It was high time to get together and turn up a pint again." Arthur gave him a pat on his thigh and laughed out. Then accepted the Madeira, as it was his round to drink. "Bring on the fire,” he muttered, gawked at the fireplace, and took three good gulps of the wine. "Bring on the hell... set everything ablaze so that no trace remains." He returned the bottle back to Alfred. "I've seen it all, Alfred."

Alfred hiccupped. "I don’t understand." He was beginning to feel intoxicated and decided to put the bottle on the floor and leave it there.

„At the beginning of the war... the first summer when I left you and Mattie back home... we came across... this village. The door in the first house had been burst open. Broken windows. We poured inside, muskets brandished. No sign of occupants. We thundered through the parlor, up the stairs, nothing... Back down in the kitchen... food was cooking. We strode in the large dining room... the table was set, half-eaten food was on the plates, still warm, abandoned in mid-meal. Underneath the table I saw the first one: a mother, draped over her two young children. In the small dining room was another one, chamber maid, I think, naked, dead, still tied to the table." He and Alfred exchanged a long, silent look in the twilight.

"You don’t have to," Alfred offered.

"No, I want to," Arthur insisted. "With hand signals, I directed my men to fan out. They did so, weaving through the abandoned village, weapons ready. Few riders cantered the perimeter of the cleared area around the first house. Over the rooftops in the distance a thin column of smoke was visible. We were unsure what we had found. I remember smelling pine needles. Along the way we checked every building, looked for some sign of life. Then we found the chapel... or better said, what remained of it. I was sidestepping some still-hot, charred beams. We had a reverend with us. He looked through the rubble. He staggered from it. Then I saw what he had. Bodies... Dozens of charred, blackened bodies, intertwined with the smoldering remains of the church... Those French bastards must have dragged half-a-dozen people out of the sidestreets... Several charred hands extended through a shattered window, as if grasping for escape... one of the hands was tiny... a child’s hand..."

Alfred could only stare, offering no solace. Behind the windows, it poured heavily. The diningroom was in an annex building with no floor above. The ceiling dripped.

Arthur rubbed his hands. "We, of course, tended to the dead. We dug out one hole in the small graveyard adjacent to the remains of the chapel, big enough to encompass all the remains. I swear when we started to pull the charred bodies out of the rubble, I...," he sniffed and gasped.

It was a strange sound, Alfred thought. Soft, muted. Alfred turned his head, listening, seeing the shimmer in Arthur’s shifting eyes.

"After we were done, we were from head to toe filthy from the ashes."

On Arthur’s face Alfred saw everything, every most horrendous image Arthur had, still was probably each time he closed his eyes.

"I swore on that day that I would let never anything like this happen to you and Matthew," Arthur gave another shuddering gasp. "And then he left us and it is only my fault. I’ve managed to get this far on my own, but..." He wiped his face and gestured for Alfred to hand the Madeira to him. "Ah, same plot, different story." And he drank. "I hate those stars of his. They mock my pain."

Alfred was torn. He looked at the window into the cold darkness, then back at Arthur, suddenly so small, vulnerable, too distant, and oblivious... Alfred couldn’t wait. He had to go... he wavered... Then he took a last look at the window and holding back his own tears, he kneeled before the faltering Arthur.

"I don't know who I am anymore. Am I catholic or protestant?" Arthur cried. "Oh God, I don’t know..."

"Shhh, It's all right." Alfred took him by his shoulders. "It's all right. It’s alright."

Arthur avoided looking at Alfred and jerked away from him. "I don't know what we've been playing at. I don't know if you still love me. And I don't know what I'm going to do without that." Arthur gestured frantically. "And why can’t the light in the fireplace just shut up?"

Alfred grabbed Arthur’s face, torn between this love for Arthur that wanted him to stay and the other kind of love that propelled him to leave and betray his country. "You went through so much. But I know that if someone could be the one to make it through, it’d be you. And here you are... For a brand new start."

Little by little, bit-by-bit, Arthur calmed down; his arms slackened and embraced Alfred. "It’s all my fault. Mine." He buried his tearing face in Alfred's shoulder. "I'm so sorry. I can’t take it all away. I'm so sorry."

Alfred gave their embrace a squeeze. "I know."

"You are my life and I'd do anything for you. You do know that?" Arthur asked pleadingly, hugging still back.

Alfred, now drowning in his own tears, turned back to a misty eyed Arthur. "I know that. I am the happiest person in the world. I have my best friend with me, my family. I have you." _And there comes a day I will have my true love with me too._

Some of the worries went off of Arthur’s shoulders, some tension thinned out around Arthur’s eyes, and there was an expression of hope and slight trepidation of his face. "Have you felt like your secrets give you away, everyone is looking and everyone is laughing?"

Step by step, Alfred too collected himself. "I think everyone feels the same." He blew his nose first, then fumbled in his knapsack and took out an apple. Using his knife he began to cut slices off the apple and ate them. He cut off a slice and offered it to Arthur who wouldn’t take it, so Alfred put the slice between them.

"Thank you for doing this. Thank you for being you." After a long moment Arthur picked the slice up. "I seem unable to stand still lately." And ate it. "But I can’t afford to be this unsteady. This cannot, and it will not happen again."

"Arthur." Alfred put away the knife and gently hugged him. "I want nothing more than all the three of us to sit here together again, to sleep in one house, me and Mattie listen to your stories, hanging on every word you say. That is where I want to be."

"Yes, Alfred. Me too."

And there went Alfred’s pain, there went his chains, he saw them fall, heard the clatter of the links as they broke apart.

They sat for an hour, talked, reminisced, and drank, until Arthur complained that he would boycott Gilbert until he would evaporate into thin air.

Alfred decided to let the logs burn down to embers and rather covered Arthur with tattered quilts, and waited until Arthur fell asleep huddled against him. Finally, he let go of him, stood and lifted off the floor one random bottle of gin. As silently as he could, he began to walk away. As he was about to round the wall and disappear out of the diningroom, he turned one last time to Arthur, "Goodbye, Arthur," he whispered, twisting up inside. From his jacket pocket he withdrew the small envelope marked with Arthur’s name and placed it on the top of the bookshelf Arthur kept his maps in, and quietly and unnoticed, he slipped out through the back of the house.

In the meanwhile, the rain had stopped. The ground was still wet. A thick ground fog surrounded the house. The shadowed figures of two sentries appeared out of the mist, one of them holding a burning torch. The thick fog turned the torch into a diffused, floating ball of light. It illuminated a young, unshaven face. "Who goes there?"

"Corporal Jones," Alfred replied calmly.

Giving the two sentries who were guarding the prisoner the bottle of gin – compliments of the commanding officer – offering to take their shift and sending them to their comrades, was the easier part.

Francis was wounded, in the battle or by Arthur, dehydrated and undernourished, and so eager to escape that he heaved abruptly off the chair as soon as Alfred had cut the ropes, but swayed and Alfred had to catch him and ease him back on his feet. But his legs were weak and failed Francis again, and he fell to his knees and lost form.

"It doesn’t matter how much it hurts," Alfred said coldly, treating an arm wound, the worst of all, retying a tourniquet and stanching an ugly flow of blood, and gestured at the other wounds. "We have to go. I will bandage you at a safe distance."

"How far...?" Francis’s voice broke.

Alfred’s eyes trailed through the barn and outside the door. "Few miles, at least." He brought out a flask and gave it to Francis hastily. "Get a good, long drink."

"Very well, just don’t be surprised if I collapse down at your feet again." Francis sniffed at the flask’s opening. "It’s water," he acknowledged with surprise but drank mouthful.

"Of course, it’s water. What did you think?"

"French Champagne would be nice?" Francis tried to joke buck started to cough and Alfred had to stifle his mouth. Francis then he let himself be hoisted and enwrapped in a - literally - great coat, at least, one size bigger. Supported by the young American, they sneaked out of the barn into the quiet, dark, moonless night.

The skies were clearing up and filling with stars. The pair stood in the shadow, looking out into the night, listening, and hearing nothing. Alfred glanced up at the clear skies, tracking his eyes from the Big Dipper to the North Star. Silently, he eased Francis out of the shadow and through the periphery of the darkened camp where a number of horses stood saddled and ready in case scouts were needed.

A sound. They stopped. Something moved in the underbrush. A fox tentatively came out of its den.

With one arm still propping the Frenchman, Alfred untied a horse and another one and together they straddled out of the encampment. Unseen, they passed the pickets. They ran, breathing hard, Alfred keeping a punishing, steady pace, pushing Francis until he could no more. Just as they were passing by a pond, Francis reeled and collapsed onto the dirt road.

"No, no, no, no, no." Alfred threw himself onto the ground next to him. "Get up! Francis! Goddammit! Get up! Get up!"

Francis averted his eyes. „I’m alright... I’m alright," he kept repeating like a prayer. „I... I’m..."

Alfred panickedly scanned the surroundings, listening for pickets, turning his head, and trying toimagine what is happening in the encampment they had left behind them. Above him, stars were still visible, but they were fading in the light of the pre-dawn glow from the horizon.

Alfred backed the mounts up around the nearest curve to the cover of the woods, and then quickly followed, grabbing Francis underneath the arms and dragging him through the grass. As he was laying him down onto the grass, a tremor went through Francis and he shivered. "Are you cold?"

"I’m alright... I’m..." Francis’s eyes fluttered, and he went out like a candle. Alfred had to smack him across his face. Francis gasped for breath and continued as if nothing happened. "We have... we have to go... we... if they find..."

"Don’t worry about that," Alfred loosened Francis belt, "You let me worry about that," loosened his collar, "You focus of staying awake, alright, buddy?" raised his legs and pushed a thick, dead branch under them. Then he went to the saddle and withdrew two blankets, two empty flasks and linen. "Stay here and stay quiet," he told Francis, covering him with blankets. "I’ll be right back."

At the place where a tiny stream fed the pond, where the water was the clearest, Alfred filled the flasks again and hurried back. He soaked wet a piece of cloth and laid it behind Francis’s neck.

Francis emptied what remained in the first flask. "Are we safe here?" he asked in a thin voice.

"They will never stop looking for us."

Alfred analytically evaluated the question and the remark as he cleaned Francis’s wounds and applied field-dressings. "They will stop eventually. Winter is coming. They’re going to have more urgent matters to dwell on."

Triage completed, Alfred wiped his own sweat off his brow, lounged in the cool grass and granted himself a couple of minutes. Then he thought of something. He stretched his arm for his knapsack, picked an apple out of it and started to cut slices. "Here, have one. It’ll do you good. Tested and approved by Alfred F. Jones," he winked at the Frenchman.

"You know," Francis took the slice, "If you happened to have a loaf of Saint-Nectaire cheese, I´d really be tempted to kill you."

Alfred shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, it’s just apples. And tobacco."

"I´d betray my king for a loaf of Saint-Nectaire." Francis took a long, shuddering breath. "Just a fragment of a life long passed, but it meant the world to me," and waved his hand to dismiss the thought.

Alfred cut off a slice for himself and chewed on it. "How is France?" Then he cut off another for Francis. That way he could keep them both occupied. And awake.

Francis closed his eyes for a moment. "Distant," he replied strangely sadly. "Beautiful and distant."

Alfred scanned the disappearing stars through the treetops, searching out the North Star, but in the increasingly harsh light of the day, he couldn't find it. So he turned his eyes back to Francis. "How are you feeling?"

Francis curled tighter into the blankets. "Small, weak, bloody vulnerable... But - as Germans use to say - I had a few beers but I’m cool to ride."

Alfred heaved Francis onto one of the horses, trying to be careful and not jostle him around much. "Here," he offered Francis his scraps of tobacco. "It tastes like shit but it’ll put you together."

With all strength Francis had left, he was clinging to the saddle. "That is most kind of you but no. Thank you," he shook his head. "I don’t want to vomit Billy here behind his ears. I’ll rather have another apple, please."

Alfred gave him the last one he had. Then grabbed his own bridle and mounted up. They rode north, through a dark forest of old growth trees, and towards an abandoned settlement the name of which Alfred didn’t remember.

The sun had risen but a heavy ground fog limited visibility to a few dozen yards. The two riders moved like ghosts.

They rode hard, galloping along a circuitous, barely visible dry trail and into the settlement. The town was deserted, no one, dead or alive, was visible. When they cantered up the slope in front of charred, cooled remains of a church and some graves, Alfred slowed down. "Forget about turning back and looking for your countrymen," he told Francis. "There will be skirmishers and flanking riders on the roads. Ride as fast as you can, that way, downhill. Hide in the brush by the river if you must, then make your way home."

Francis saluted. "Oui, mon commandant."

The wind got suddenly stronger, dispersing the milky fog, letting through few warm rays of the sun. Francis took a position next to Alfred. "I like you, kid. I will give you an advice. I don't do that very often, so you better consider yourself as lucky." Francis smirked. "Everyone has oceans to fly. As long as you have the heart to do it. Is it reckless? Maybe. But what do dreams know of boundaries? I look back and think about the hands I have held, the places I have seen, the vast lands whose dirt is caked on the bottom of my shoes. And you know what I see? No regrets."

Alfred made a wry face. "I can't erase and I can't rewind what happened. What makes you thing Matthew would forgive me?"

"Nothing. Alfred, if I could change the currents of our lives, if I could destroy the cruelty of fate, I wouldn’t earn my bread by wallowing in the dirt. But," Francis made a grand gesture with his arms, "here's your chance for a new beginning."

Alfred brushed his mare on her neck absentmindedly; beautiful golden fur, silver mane, "I’m afraid the time without him killed all the faith I owned."

"Nonsense, mon ami. You have not forgotten each other through all of this. And you never thought you'd be here after all this time either. And yet. Here you are."

"What if I can't make him happy?"

"You will try."

"What if I will fail?"

"What if the sun won’t come up tomorrow?" Francis offered a hand and Alfred shook it gladly. "I do wish you all the best, Alfred. The both of you."

"Goodbye, Francis. Good luck."

Francis nodded, snapped the reins and thundered off.

Alfred thought about Arthur, about deceiving him, and if it would break his heart,for a second there he might have wanted to turn and ride back. He wavered, walked his mare a couple of steps. As he watched the departing colonel, his resolve stiffened. With a hard yank of the reins, he jerked his mare's head around and spurred her and rode off in different direction.Without looking back.

To be continued...

Bavaria

 

 


	8. chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How could something this beautiful be a crime punishable by hanging? He wants me, Alfred realized, he loves me, not as brothers love each other but as lovers do. //HumanAU;UsCan;Another one of my Love&War fics, this time set in the French and Indian War//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Hetalia does not belong to me. But this story does... Beta-edited by GoldenDiscord: Thank you so much that you have found time for my story despite RL catching up on you ;)

'Poor, pale, pitiable form  
That I follow in a storm;  
Iron tears and groans of lead  
Bind around my aching head.

Till I turn from Female love  
And root up the Infernal Grove,  
I shall never worthy be  
To step into Eternity.

William Blake

It was the coldest night of the winter. Last evening's storm had covered the country and all the trails with snow. Alfred sat by the fire, wrapped in two blankets, well-hidden in the snowdrift of an empty river bed, just beneath a bridge.

"I woke up this morning, believing that by this afternoon, my life would be different. Not only because it was my dream, but because I'd earned it. And now look at me. It is late evening, and I am just another pathetic soul, lost and angry and traitorous," Alfred scribbled angrily into his diary he started ever since he left Arthur and his army.

The howl of a far away wolf caused the mare to spook. Alfred clicked his tongue to calm her down.

"I will wait for you. However long it takes. I will wait for you forever. What I want is you, there is no one else who can take your place. But I fear I will find you dead and alone. And my heart, my life, will never be the same."

That was the one thought he hadn't wanted to dwell on but it had always lurked in the back of his mind.

Alfred moaned loudly and rubbed his eyes and curled in tighter on himself. "I have no way of giving this to you. So I've written it only for myself. I will hide it with all the other things left undone between us," he continued, shivering. He felt like everything inside of him had been burned to the surface and left to weather, defenseless and vulnerable.

Alfred changed his position so he could keep the fire burning so he and the nearly spent mare could be warm and to keep the darkness away. He began to write again until the night cloaked the world in a cape of quiet and solitude.

* * *

The morning came. The sun rose behind the never-ending white hills, the perfect golden disk into a haze of red, orange and blue. The first rays brushed Alfred´s face. He finished saddling his mare, mounted up and headed off further North. As he cantered up to the crest of a wooded hill, he slowed, walked the last few feet and looked over the hillside. A path ran through a glen, about fifty feet below, hemmed in by a river, where a lonely cow was grazing upon the snow, or so Alfred thought.

As Alfred was nearing the cow, he saw it skittishly approaching then retreating from the river. Then he saw the cause. The water was dyed with a pale, pink hue. He didn´t have to try to figure out what it was. The pale pink was turning redder and redder. And then the bodies. Torn apart. Missing limbs. The ones with wide-open wounds were already pouring blood. Others were still seeping, leaving trails of deep red in the paler red of the surrounding water.

It wasn´t long before he heard the rumble. Six-pounders. Lots of them. Four, five miles away just east of him. Then, the ground began to shake. A thunderous sound rose, louder and louder. Horses hooves. And then heavy musket fire, very close.

Without out thinking twice, Alfred yanked the reins, broke for the trees up on the crest and vanished.

From around a bend down in the glen, a detachment of cavalry galloped, scaring the poor cow off. British green dragoons, the finest light cavalry in the world. Hard, strong men, excellent horsemen, their mounts powerful and muscled. The riders were armed to the teeth. Each carried a flintlock carbine, a brace of pistols and a sword. Some carried lances as well. Regimental flags fluttered. They were fifty of the most imposing, frightening horsemen imaginable, heading east to the skirmish.

Alfred waited, listened and watched. When the coast was clear, he rode off in pursuit. Toward the thuds and screams. He blasted through the brush, galloping toward the sounds of the battle. It grew louder with every leap.

When suddenly, a vista spread out down below him. Mist rolled low, stretching toward a white, rolling hill beyond. Appearing out of the low mist, a nightmarish vision. Young soldiers, both French and British scattered on the ground, dead and wounded. Many had been hideously torn apart by the massive cannon balls. The entire scene, covered in blood.

And beyond – an awesome sight – a massive slash of white and blue was approaching a massive slash of red. A battle was taking place. The British held the heights on the other side, shooting down on the French.

Alfred started to spur his mare yet something restrained him. Brightly colored clusters of men behind the red army. Cavalry. The Dragoons from before among other cavalry. Waiting. Shifting.

The distant slash of white and blue was moving forward determinedly. The French line advanced at a quickstep, bayonets fixed and gleaming in the faint light. Screams for help, grunts of pain, moans of the dying, but also angry curses in the heat of battle. Then the wind changed, and Alfred could hear only the rustling of some nearby trees. Then, from a black mass of the side of the red slash, a sudden, silent eruption of white smoke.

An instant later, the white and blue slash quivered. A moment later the sound of the cannons exploded up the hill and rolled over Alfred. His mare spooked and bucked. Alfred pressed his legs into her sides and pulled the reins sharply to the right and didn´t release her until she stopped moving completely.

The white and blue slash stopped. It darkened as hundreds of Frenchmen raised their muskets and the front ranks kneeled into firing position. The smoke of ineffective, scattered volleys erupted from their barrels. They just could not reach the British on the heights. The red line held firm. An instant later, a massive eruption of white smoke billowed from the red slash. The white and blue line started to break up as the distant soldiers began to fall.

The sound of the British muskets reached Alfred like the pattering of rain.

Those Frenchmen who could, started to abandon their positions. But they stood in the open field. North, West and South hammed in by the hills and marshes in the East. From behind the Redcoats, fast-moving red and green masses moved quickly onto the battlefield. Cavalry. They appeared from behind the fleeing French, at a full gallop. It was an astonishing sight... total madness... hell... a painting by Hieronymous Bosch... The riders were closing in on the fleeing Frenchmen. The cavalry swords were drawn and raised for a slaughter...

They slammed into the white and blue line, shattering it. Tiny bits of white and blue moved in every direction. No remorse, no hesitation, no pity... A relentless, simple battle... Slashing through the French infantry...

Alfred watched, feeling the strange feeling of sympathy for the enemy. From this distance, the moving slashes of color and billowing smoke were strangely beautiful. But it was what it was.

Just another war.

Just another family torn.

Just another kill.

Alfred turned his horse and headed down the hill, toward the rear of the bleeding French lines.

* * *

Alfred warily approached the scene of the battle, a musket slung over his shoulder and a pair of pistols on his belt, leading his shifting mount behind him.

A nightmare. The French suffered. Heavily. Screams of agony. A few dozen battered French survivors treated their wounded and prepared to move them out of the damned field. The battle, so bloodless and beautiful at a distance, had, in its aftermath, become horrific and ugly.

Alfred surveyed the scene, moving the mare between the bodies, minding the screaming wounded and dying. He didn't look like a soldier, he discarded the red uniform long time ago. Besides, the British kept the Frogs occupied very well.

Drifting smoke opened up glimpses of the battle here and there but it was primarily a battle of sound...

A cluster of French soldiers broke and ran towards the marshes in the distance. The British green dragoons rode into them… hacked them to bits... killed almost all of them. Over two hundred men.

From the woods came the Mingo warriors, with black and red stripes all over their faces and shoulders. Fearsome ghosts, not touched by anything, nor cold or death. And the slaughter started.

The French fired, dropping a few Mingo warriors. But then they stopped in confusion. One of their own, a lieutenant dropped dead with a tomahawk between his eyes. A French sergeant took command. Some Frenchmen primed, some reloaded, one drew a bead on a Mingo who dropped to the ground and fired with his British Brown Bess musket, killing him.

Alfred stood alone in the middle of the chaos. The world around him seemed so crystal-clear. Clearer than he was able to remember it in his entire life. Oh, how he tried to guard against despair. At moments like this, when it seemed that all human decency had been shattered. At moments like that, all the horrors seemed so unbelievably vivid.

A flash of fire dimmed by the mist turned Alfred´s attention to the British-held heights. To the spot now marked by the cannon´s smoke...

The ground before Alfred burst open. Alfred´s eyes widened in shock. His mind narrowed only to the sensation of unbearable heat on his face and in his lungs. Time seemed to slow.

A fountain of snow and dirt and blood…

_Matthew… I´m sorry, Matthew, I couldn´t make it back to you._

Dead silence.

* * *

It was snowing when Alfred woke. He rose and started to walk through the endless field. He tensed, sensing someone in front of him. Then he saw Matthew at the edge of the woods. Neither one spoke.

They walked silently to each other. They stopped. They were looking at each other closely, as if seeing one another for the first time...

Only then they kissed. The kiss grew more passionate... Oh, so much more passionate...

Then they just embraced, their eyes telling their own stories.

"Matthew… I can`t believe it would end this way. The time it took, the strength to come here. Only to lose it all and die." Alfred´s cold hand collided with an even colder, smaller and paler hand belonging to the other man dressed in a white and blue uniform. Otherwise, they were the same. "I can´t believe true love would kill me, on a snowy day." Alfred smiled wryly. "I couldn't make you see that I loved you more than you'll ever know." He brought Matthew´s hand to his cheek.

"But I know."

Alfred hid his face in Matthew's collarbone, feeling a slender arm around his shoulders and cold fingers splayed out to cradle the back of his head. "I wanted us to start new. I wanted to build another world for us, a perfect one."

"You still can."

"I can´t take it all back; I can't fix this," Alfred said in a voice offering no hope.

"We can make a life together. A happy life."

Alfred wagged his head sorrowfully. "Matthew, I can only cause you pain."

"Why don't you let me be the judge of that?"

Alfred felt Matthew's words more than he heard them, felt them as a low rumble from deep in his chest. He gently disentangled himself. They stood silently, unable to see anything other than each other and the gently slope of the newly fallen snow in front of them. The look of absolute resoluteness in Matthew's eyes was something Alfred had never seen before.

"Alfred, save the best for a better ending."

* * *

The sun hit the highest peak at the sky. It was then when Alfred gained back his consciousness. He looked up – into the endless sky mirroring its blue in his eyes. He looked around – he found himself on the ground, bathing in the blood of his mare, two armies surrounding him. Red and white soldiers were running from behind and from the side of him.

_Get up,_ Alfred thought to himself. _Get up!_

Bullets and shells whistled and shattered everything standing in their way, and there was something charming in that sound.

Alfred crawled, then got to his feet, somehow, and walked. Sudden, hurried steps, and Alfred looked out of the corner of his eye and spotted a French soldier at the last moment, running towards him, the bayonet fixed on his musket.

Alfred quickly bolted, disarmed him, pulled him close, drew a knife and plunged it into his enemy´s chest, turning it. He took the French musket and fired, killing another Frenchman. Instinct kicked in and Alfred was himself again.

Another French soldier finished reloading. Alfred rushed to him, shoved aside the barrel and slammed him in the face with the butt of the French musket. Then he changed his expended musket and picked up the Frenchman´s loaded musket, shoved it into a random Frenchman's belly and fired.

Before the dead soldier hit the ground, Alfred discarded the French musket and strode through the open. Without slowing, he readied his two pistols, his eyes trained on the chaos around him.

The muskets and cannons continued to fire. Alfred didn't hear them. His focus was on getting out of that field of destruction.

Four Frenchmen leaped into Alfred´s way. Alfred aimed and fired his both pistols at once, dropping two enemies. Two Frenchmen remained, neither finished loading. One reached for a cutlass. Alfred popped up quickly, disarmed him, gaining a shallow wound to his neck, and slammed him back against a tree.

Taken aback by the speed and ferocity of Alfred's attack, the last remaining French soldier didn´t do as much as scream when Alfred plunged the cutlass into his belly and hacked him open. Ignoring the glancing wound to his neck, Alfred turned to the first Frenchman and slit his throat, splattering himself with blood.

Undetected by neither side, through friends and enemies, Alfred ducked and ran into the shadows of the thick undergrowth of the forest line, heavy with snow.

* * *

Alfred waited in the thick undergrowth. He could hear but not see the British. Then, through the thick undergrowth, Alfred caught a glimpse of a Mingo warrior. The imposing looking Indian led several men onto a wooded island, joined then by a dozen-and-a-half men, including few white men in ragged red uniforms. The Indian was holding a long-bladed knife and a worn tomahawk. No temper, just hard, cold authority.

Three wounded Frenchmen were kneeling around a campfire in the middle of an island surrounded by small lakes of melted snow. One of the green dragoons reined in. The Frenchmen stood, their arms raised, one of them still held the white cloth of surrender. The dragoon stopped in front of the three prisoners and spoke a few sentences in French.

One of the French soldiers talked back. It was a dispatch rider with a marked case. All three of them were looking up at the rider, imploringly.

The dragoon motioned for one of the savages with a painted black and red face: "They are of no use for us. Do what you want with them," he said coldly and rode off.

The savage calmly swung his tomahawk at one of the three Frenchmen, splitting his head in two, killing him instantly. He glimpsed at the shocked, terrified expressions on the faces of the remaining two men and smiled at the effect. The Frenchmen began to cry, look to the British with pleading eyes, helplessly, waiting for them to do something, begging for mercy.

The Redcoat soldiers were impassive, having seen worse. Some scattered, some went to get horses and wagons and carriages and began loading their wounded, and others stayed to watch this cruel spectacle to the end.

Alfred scanned the terrain, planning a route, hearing the squeals of some livestock the British brought with them and then the sounds of muskets firing. The he took a quick glance at the captured Frenchmen, seeing that the savages held another one down. One Mingo grabbed his hair, yanked back his head and slit his throat.

Looking at the huge, incomprehensible wound, Alfred knew that man was already dead, though his body still moved. In silence, Alfred watched the Mingo do their bloody work. They hated the French. And the British harvested that.

Shocked by the carnage, the final French soldier, the dispatch rider, was weeping uncontrollably. His body was shaking violently, moving in a mad, staccato manner, as if he were a marionette, whose strings were being jerked by a drunken puppeteer.

The Mingo with painted black and red face swung his arm and slapped the Frenchman hard across his face. The soldier stumbled, then fell back, off the island and hit the cold water. The Mingo drew his pistol, about to fire at him.

The French soldier froze, his eyes locked on the Mingo above him. About to deliver the killing blow the Mingo got closer... The Frenchman was oblivious, concentrating on the Mingo´s gun hand... The Mingo lowered his pistol... fired... past the Frenchman.

The French soldier, stunned, exhausted and surprised to be alive, watched as the Mingo sheathed his pistol away, still standing over him and giving himself a moment of bitter triumph. Then the Mingo turned back to his men, telling them something in their native tongue. Some Mingo laughed.

The French soldier, terrified but decisively, scrambled back, rose and started to run deeper into the forest, away from the battlefield, on a path that took him directly past hidden Alfred.

The Mingo grew disorderly as the Frenchman was running away and obviously wanted to charge after the fleeing man and hunt him down but the Mingo with painted black and red face walked out and intercepted them. A flurry of orders and gestures to his men who checked their weapons and began leaving reluctantly.

Alfred thought about the marked case for a moment. The Redcoats had probably ran through it sooner. If there ever was any information, they had had it already.

_However..._

The French soldier ducked into the woods...

Alfred tore after him...

The chase began.

* * *

A footrace.

The French soldier blasted through the brush.

Alfred strode, panting, sometimes losing ground, picking a route between the bare trees, shrubs and stubs. His powder horns and ammunition pouches bouncing on him. He made up with cold fury what he lacked in condition.

They blasted out of the woods into a clearing. Alfred chased the Frenchman past the signs of a small skirmish. Bodies. Abandoned carbines and sabers. Dead horses. A burning wagon.

Alfred cocked his pistol and extracted his tomahawk on the run.

The Frenchman was almost to the cover of the trees on the far side.

Alfred threw his tomahawk. It flew through the air. And sank in the bark of a tree left to the French soldier´s head.

The soldier cried out. Wavered. He was young, Alfred could tell, though his face was covered with dirt and sweat.

_Young and stupid,_ Alfred thought, as all young men are. He examined that soldier's face, finding him familiar, but unable to place him... then the Frenchman eased back and ran up the wooden hillside.

Alfred ran up to that tree with his tomahawk stuck in it. Without pausing, he wrenched the tomahawk from the bark and raced forward, toward his enemy…

A shot tore through the air.

Alfred was on the ground in a second. Stunned, confused, he panically looked down and saw the massive exit wound in his knapsack. _Son of a…,_ Alfred was beside himself. That son of a bitch must have snatched a carbine or a pistol off that clearing. Alfred´s panic turned to fury. He rose, his eyes trained on the shooter, and fired his pistol... and the pistol backfired, almost searing his hand. "Damn it!" he swore, flinging the damaged pistol away. Immediately, he drew his second pistol, loaded it, aimed, fired… and missed. "Oh, you got to be…"

That had never happened to him before. His bullet had always found its target. Nevertheless, Alfred kept firing back from his pistol, finding the musket unusable in thick growth of the forest. Most of his shots were going awry. "Damn it! Goddammit!" he swore again and again.

A moment later, Alfred got to a fork: one road going up, higher into the mountains, the other down again. He looked... nothing. Listened... nothing. Decided to choose a path, and continued, stumbling down the hillside. There he spotted the Frenchman who ran along a raised road that dropped off into a swamp on either side.

In the middle of winter, the swamp was unfrozen. There was no loud buzzing of swamp insects, no cries of the swamp birds. Just a silent, dark blot on the white ground.

Alfred watched the enemy soldier disappear into the black water. The Frenchman was nearly at the end of his strength. And so was Alfred who reluctantly leaped over a dead tree and followed in pursuit.

The knee-deep water and reed slowed Alfred down. When he came to a dead end, blocked by a heavy tangle of huge thorn bushes, he stopped to catch his breath. _Which way now?_ Spent, fuming, he observed the ground which threatened to swallow him up. _This way... no this... I think..._ He glared into the impenetrable darkness of plant-choked water and swamp.

Exhausted, cold, wet, covered with mud and bleeding from swamp briars, suddenly Alfred had had enough. He made a choice. He turned around and started to walk back the way he came, struggling through a nearly impassable morass of dead plants, reeds and stones, warily checking every shadow. No one anywhere. Then a sound – approaching footsteps, immediately followed by a splash and a curse spoken in French.

With halting steps, then faster and faster, Alfred neared the commotion. He drew his pistol. Without breaking stride, he finished reloading, then coldly fired, hitting the fleeing soldier in the arm. The Frenchman was thrown to his knees by the shot and fell down into the swamp.

From the distance Alfred watched his wounded prey – crawling on the ground, probably looking for his gun in the black mire. Oh, when Alfred would get him into his hands… he would beat him until his knuckles hurt... beat him bloody...

The French soldier noticed Alfred looking back at him, and he struggled to get to his feet in the knee-deep water. He knew what was about to happen. He was appalled. A sudden scream tore from him when Alfred grabbed him roughly. The young man was desperately pleading in French, wriggling and kicking while Alfred dragged him back onto the embankment... into the light where Alfred could see the face... young and frightened and up-close… Alfred saw the panicking soldier´s eyes…

Alfred felt his heart drop.

"MATTHEW!"

To be continued...

Bavaria


	9. chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How could something this beautiful be a crime punishable by hanging? He wants me, Alfred realized, he loves me, not as brothers love each other but as lovers do. //HumanAU;UsCan;Another one of my Love&War fics, this time set in the French and Indian War//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Hetalia does not belong to me. But this story does... Beta-edited by the wonderful GoldenDiscord.

'And throughout all Eternity  
I forgive you, you forgive me.  
As our dear Redeemer said:  
"This the Wine, and this the Bread."'

William Blake

"Matthew?" Alfred whispered breathlessly. Under the dirt and the tangled hair was the face of his brother. Matthew was thinner; war had melted all the softness from his face and left him hard and lean. And his blond hair fell uncut to his shoulders, but it was Matthew. "Matthew!"

Squirming, Matthew tried to wrench himself free of Alfred´s iron grip. "Laissez-moi passer!"

Alfred was at loss of what to do. "It´s me, Matthew, don´t... don´t you know me, don´t you?" The tears began welling up in his eyes. "Matthew, it´s me!" And Alfred found himself weeping like a little boy he once had been.

Matthew´s eyes went from Alfred´s hands to his face. His initial panic grew to a suspicious frown.

Alfred understood and let Matthew go, watching teary-eyed with the same altered look Lovino had after Feliciano was killed.

Matthew jerked away from him and backed off a couple of paces, hitting the nearest tree with his back, screaming, „S'il vous plaît, ne tirez pas! Je ne veux pas mourir!"

"What? What is it?" Alfred wiped his tears, and slowly approached his frightened brother, and continued to talk to him, „Matthew... It's alright... Calm down... Please... You... you have to know me..."

"Why are you pointing a gun at me? I have already told your commander... I have told you everything I know... which is pretty much everything I know! Please don't kill me, please!"

Alfred just then realized he was still holding the pistol in his hand and let it fall down to the ground. "Forgive me... I… I'm sorry..."

Matthew's breathing slowed to a choked whisper, "l can't see... I can't move...,"he blinked, reeled, growing faint... Alfred, horrified, leaned in closer, ignoring Matthew's attempts to bat him away, and grabbed him, keeping him from falling, and eased him to the ground. Matthew slid to the snow, staining the snow red from his wounds.

Alfred crouched, "I'm sorry. I know I messed up. And I'm sorry," and cautiously wrapped his arms around the young man. "I was wrong about so many things." Mathew began to weep in his arms. "I'm sorry, I´m sorry. Come on, Matthew, come on. Please, calm down, please..." Every second, every breath Matthew drew caused Alfred's heart to break a little further.

Alfred cradled Matthew´s face and looked deep into his eyes. "The war is over for us." The two brothers stared at each other – eye to eye. "I won´t let go, Matthew. I won´t let go. Just come back to me... please... come back to me..." At the very least, that might have quelled some of the anxiety, Alfred thought.

Matthew´s eyes went wide. "Alfred...," he said in a choked voice, "... Alfred?"

„It's been a while since I last saw you."

Then everything snapped like a daisy chain and then Matthew began to cry outright.

Holding in his own tears, Alfred gathered him in his arms and let him cry. Gripped as desperately by remorse as he was moments before by rage, Alfred repeated his apology over and over.

Matthew couldn't control himself, he was crying harder than he ever thought possible.

"Shhh, it´s alright... it´s alright... we´re alright," Alfred was whispering into Matthew´s ear, "Now you're in my arms. I have never wanted anything so bad," kissing him. His hold on Matthew was gentle as if trying to hold something fragile together.

It felt like an eternity before the tears began to dry and Matthew could begin to get his breath back, though still interrupted by the occasional hitching sob.

Alfred held tight until his crying brother settled down. "After all this time I never thought we'd be here. We´ll go to a secret place and leave the world behind." Then he noticed the blood stains on the snow and – in the meantime – on his right sleeve too, and began applying field dressing he kept in his knapsack with the same coolness as before with Francis.

"I... I do-don't believe you anymore," Matthew answered, still shaken, but he let himself be helped by Alfred.

Seeing that the bullet had only scratched Matthew, Alfred breathed a sigh of relief. "I swear to God I would, Matthew," he pleaded while tighten a strap of cloth around Matthew´s arm. "Please. I'll make everything up to you, you'll see..."

"… I don't know who you are anymore..."

"... I'll be everything you need me to be... You'll get the very best of me..."

"... I don't know if I love you any longer... And I don't know what I'm going to do if I don't!"

Alfred grabbed his brother by the shoulders, "All the things I never said for so very long, look up, they're in my eyes. The war has changed me." Alfred paused, waited for a sign, waited for Matthew´s reply, fighting the urge tilt his head and cry to the sky. "There will never be another. You're the only one forever. And you know that I'm yours alone."

Matthew kept burning him with his look... those eyes... which could see past all the lies… while Alfred climbed on top of his doubt.

Matthew just shook his head, his eyes never leaving Alfred´s face.

"You don't want to go home." Alfred realized and felt his fears wash over him. He kissed Matthew, trying to coax a word out of the silent boy, "Just one word? That's all I want." But he was stretching after Matthew too much. Matthew was just out of reach. "You don't want to go home." Alfred repeated and let go of Matthew´s shoulders.

They sat silently in the snow, just like in that one dream, unable to see anything other than each other.

In their childhood, Alfred found his confidence in Matthew, he had found his hope when he lost control. Ten minutes ago, they wanted to kill each other. Matthew was just a memory. Two months ago, as Alfred pushed forward together with Arthur, Gilbert, Antonio, Feliciano and Lovino, for the pride and the glory, Matthew was just a ghost. They were his friends. They were those who shed their blood with him then and there. And they were his brothers.

Alfred´s life turned out to be different than he wanted it to be. Would he have the strength to start all over again? Would Matthew? _No fear_ , Alfred thought to himself. For what was worth, it was never too late to be whoever they wanted to be. There was no time limit, no rules in that. They could start whenever they wanted. They could change or stay the same. They could make the best or the worst of their lives. Even if they saw things that had struck and startled them, and they did things that made them feel ashamed.

"I left Arthur," Alfred began slowly, "without a word, though I wrote him a letter. Now he probably thinks that I could have had it all. Instead, I loved a man." Alfred lowered his hands to rub away the blood off in the snow. "I wrote him that he taught me to think clearly and to defend what's mine. I wrote him that the immediate prospect of him reading this letter would shatter my spirit but he must know. His fears over my behavior which he thought arbitrary and unreasonably restrictive would seem now full of wisdom. I wrote him that I had news I had been withholding from him. But, like poison from an adder's tongue, I had to spit it out. I told him everything about us in that letter." Alfred stood, brushing off his clothes, and started to walk, collecting his knapsack, pistol and other gear that fell down or he threw away during the fight. "I finished it with the fact that he would hear a lot of bad things about me, but only one thing would be right. So when he would hear something that would be really, really bad, he should try to think that's the one time they're wrong... that perhaps after the anger for which he had every right to feel, he would remember that we were his sons."

Matthew sat there, shaking. Alfred stared at him; Matthew´s face was strangely expressionless.

"If I offer you my hand," Alfred said and held out his hand, "will it change where you are right now?"

It was then when Matthew noticed the sparkle in Alfred´s eyes. All the sweet innocence of the world was hidden there, in the lines of his older brother´s mature face; an angel in disguise…

Matthew threw himself into his arms, and was enveloped by Alfred, hard stomach, wide manly shoulders, holding him, letting him breath him in, they were both fighting their tears...

Alfred hesitated but his relief tightened his embrace. "Your world is here... with me."

They would make the best of it, even if they met people with a different point of view that would make them feel uneasy.

"I still love you, Alfred."

"And you tolerate me because of how much l love you." Alfred held Matthew in his strong arms. His hand stroke the small of Matthew´s back and he felt him relax, his body slacken. "It´s good to have you back. The house was too empty." Taking his brother firmly by the hand, Alfred walked him out of the forest.

The battle was over. The fog had lifted. But the amount of smoke each musket, each canon and fire created was incredible. It obscured everything. The massive, opaque white cloud spread over the entire battlefield. Though as far as the eye could see, the field was covered with the debris of war, dead men and scattered weapons. All the French and British soldiers lay still where they fell. The brothers caught two horses, tied on them anything they had found useful and galloped away, leaving all the madness behind.

* * *

The hut was abandoned, brooding and neglected. The garden was covered to the thigh with snow. But it was partially rebuilt and habitable. A workshop nearby had been already completed. The slats in the shutters on the upstairs windows were mostly broken out. A slight breeze made the shutters tap against the hose and the hinges squeaked. The paint was weathered and peeling off in spots. Dust and spider webs covered the furniture. Thank god that, at least, the previous owners left enough wood and though the brothers had to collect and melt snow for water, they would make it through the winter.

Through the cloudy panes of the narrow window, Alfred could make out the setting sun behind the spruce trees surrounding the cabin, a snow-capped stony well, but he was distracted by a different sight.

Alfred put his finger under Matthew´s chin and lifted his head, so Matthew was looking up into his eyes. Taking him lightly under the arms, Alfred lifted him and seated him on a rounded table. Then he stooped facing Matthew, his hands flat on the table at Matthew´s sides, their faces finally at a height.

"I'm ready when you're ready for me...?" Matthew asked halfheartedly.

Alfred didn´t reply and pulled the Brown Bess over his right shoulder and began to remove his gear, his pistol, knife, and pouches...

After a moment, Matthew leaned forward and helped him unlace the belt...

When they were done, Alfred gestured. Matthew understood. Slowly, carefully, Matthew began to undo the buttons on Alfred´s coat and shirt. He could see the shape of Alfred´s manhood pressing through his trousers.

It took a long time, all the while they sat there silently, watching each other.

Then it was Alfred´s turn; he began to undress Matthew. His fingers were deft and strangely tender. He removed Matthew´s jacket while Matthew sat still and silent, gazing into his brother's eyes.

When Alfred bared his shoulders, Matthew couldn´t help himself but tremble. He averted his eyes and looked at his fingers instead.

Gently but firmly, Alfred lifted Matthew´s face again to make Matthew look at him. "Don't." Alfred said.

"I won´t…," Matthew echoed back at him.

Alfred stood Matthew up then and pulled him close to remove the last part of his uniform.

The night air was chilly on Matthew´s bare skin; he shivered, gooseflesh covered his arms and legs.

For a while nothing happened. Alfred stood before him, looking at him, drinking in his body with his eyes. After a while Alfred began to touch him. Lightly at first, then harder. Matthew could sense the strength in Alfred´s hands, but he never hurt him.

Alfred held Matthew´s hand in his own and brushed his fingers, one by one. He ran a hand gently down Matthew´s chest, stomach... Then he returned to Matthew´s face, stroke it, traced the curve of his ears, and ran a finger gently around Matthew´s mouth. Alfred´s finger felt as light and cool as a lover´s kiss, as it slid softly between his lips. Matthew put both hands in Alfred´s hair and combed it with his fingers.

Their bodies touched.

Alfred turned Matthew around then, slid a knuckle down the path of his spine, and slid further down his leg. He curled an arm around Matthew´s waist and buried his face in Matthew's neck, his breath steamy. "Is this alright?" he asked. "Tell me it's alright."

"Yes," Matthew panted, his breath equally steamy. "It's alright." He shivered as Alfred trailed his wet mouth down his shoulder blade, suckling a bit and them moving further, his tongue squirmed down the small of Matthew's back and Matthew heard himself whining, tipping back his head as Alfred traced a path down his ass with his tongue.

It seemed as if hours passed before Alfred´s hands finally returned to Matthew´s chest. Alfred stroked the soft skin underneath his nipples until it tingled. He circled his nipples with his thumbs, pinched them between thumb and forefinger, then began to pull at them, very lightly at first, then more insistently, until Matthew´s nipples stiffened and began to ache.

Alfred stopped then and drew Matthew down onto his lap. Matthew was flushed and breathless, his heart fluttering in his chest. He was looking on Alfred´s swollen cock, a little afraid of what would come next. Alfred cupped Matthew´s face in his calloused hands and Matthew looked into his eyes.

"We don´t have to… not tonight," Alfred said, and Matthew knew that it was a question. He took Alfred´s hand and moved it down to the wetness between his thighs. "But I want to," Matthew whispered as Alfred´s palm, big and rough and hot slipped down his hip, his fingernails grazing the jutting bone, and closed his eyes as finally Alfred put his fingers around him and stroked.

To be continued...

Bavaria


	10. chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How could something this beautiful be a crime punishable by hanging? He wants me, Alfred realized, he loves me, not as brothers love each other but as lovers do. //HumanAU;UsCan;Another one of my Love&War fics, this time set in the French and Indian War//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Hetalia does not belong to me. This story does. Thank you GoldenDiscord for beta-editing this piece for me :)

"If a thing loves, it is infinite."

William Blake

 

They were alive.

They were free.

Spring morning

Their newly grown apple trees have received their first buds. The snow finally melted away and uncovered a narrow but strong stream feeding a lake behind their hut. The brothers spent most of their time there, riding down to the nearest villages only to buy what they couldn´t grow or make.

Alfred had walked out of the post office and stood on the side of a street, looking up at a chevron of Canadian Geese flying north. The Canadian Geese flew over Matthew who was behind the grocery store, tying food and provisions to their two horses. He tossed Alfred some apples from last autumn. Alfred threw the apples into the air, one-by-one, catching them behind his back, a cocky move, executed with a disarming smile that made Matthew laugh every time.

"You know, I think l may have found my place in this world," Matthew told Alfred as he mounted the horse.

Alfred tossed one last glance towards the geese and breathed. Then he turned to Matthew, studied his face, and replied, "I feel alive here," smiling.

* * *

Summer night. 

The apple trees in their garden were covered with flowers. Matthew stripped on the grassy shore and let his filthy clothes fall to the ground. Naked, he stepped gingerly into the water.

Common people said that the lake had no bottom, but he felt soft mud squishing between his toes as he pushed through the tall reeds. The moon floated on the still black waters, shattering and re-forming as Matthew´s ripples washed over it. Goose pimples rose on his pale skin as the coldness crept up his thighs and kissed his cock. He had spent the entire day around the hut, having the chore of regularly cleaning it, tending to the horses and the chicken and geese family they had bought recently, while Alfred was out in the woods, hunting. The dirt had dried on his hands and around his chest. Matthew cupped his fingers and lifted the waters over his head, cleansing himself and the lassitude inside himself.

Alfred stood on the shore, naked as well, only a candle in his hand with a robe swung over his shoulder, staring at Matthew. Matthew looked relaxed now and well rested while Alfred was full of aches. Matthew heard Alfred muttering something as he watched, and wondered what he was saying. When he emerged from the lake, shivering and dripping, Alfred hurried to him with the robe. But Matthew waved him away.

"If you don´t put down that candle, you´ll burn your fingers," Matthew gestured at the candle.

Alfred put down the candle, took Matthew's hands in his, and pulled Matthew gently to him. Matthew bent under the kiss. Alfred´s mouth tasted of honey and lemon tea. Matthew touched Alfred´s hair lightly, sliding the blond strands between his fingers and murmuring softly in French. Alfred didn´t understand a word, yet there was warmth in that tone, a tenderness he loved to hear from this man whose company he craved and cherished more than everything else in this world.

Alfred held Matthew in his strong arms, his left hand slipped around the back of Matthew's head and pulled him deeper and deeper into the kiss. His right hand found its way down Matthew´s shoulder blade, the small of his back, caressing his right butt-cheek with smooth fingers, and then striking his rectum, opening him and waking that sweet wetness that was Alfred´s alone.

Matthew´s mind shut down. Alfred´s tongue in his mouth was greedy and forceful, and yet gentle, smoothing over the bites Alfred was occasionally leaving when nipping at his lips. Then his huge Alfred took him by the hips and turned him around. Matthew wrapped his arm around Alfred´s neck, the other around Alfred´s waist. Matthew´s hands still had the smell of soil.

Alfred pressed his face against Matthew´s nape as he thrust himself inside him. Matthew screamed loud enough to scare off some deer. Three quick strokes and Alfred was done, he bit at Matthew´s nape, hard, in the moment of his pleasure, his seed filling Matthew. When Alfred pulled out of him, his seed trickled down the inside of Matthew´s thighs.

"Did you miss me?" Alfred teased, he took Matthew´s hands and kissed them.

"Desperately," Matthew admitted as he stood before him, pink and nude and beautiful.

Alfred gave a snort and wrinkled up his boyish face. "You´ll never be able to rest as long as I´m gone hunting," he smirked wickedly. "You´ll think of me every time you go to water the horses... every time you go to sweep the floor... every time you go to pluck the herbs... And you´ll get hard. But then you´ll have no one to help you..."

"Then shouldn´t you be making love to me instead of talking?"

Alfred shrugged. "So… err… what would you like us do now? It´s already late... my hands and feet are sore... let´s just go to sleep... next time... maybe...?"

"Shut up and kiss me," Matthew commanded. He could taste the cold on Alfred's kiss and feel that strong heart beat against his chest as his fingers moved down Alfred´s stomach and between Alfred´s thighs and squeezed him. Feeling that Alfred started to stiffen again under his touch, Matthew smirked equally wickedly. "I don´t think that he wants to wait until next time," he announced. "He wants to come out and count all my brown spots, I think."

The pair hurried inside. Alfred dropped the robe onto the table. Matthew blew off a candle, then another, and then he came to Alfred from behind and rubbed his hand on Alfred´s stomach and began kissing and sucking on his neck. "I want to sleep with you... I want to wake up with you... I want to spend the rest of my days like this."

Alfred could feel the softness of Matthew´s skin pressed against his back. A song filled his head. Softly, quietly, he began to hum.

"What´s that?" Matthew murmured against him.

"A song I learned," Alfred told him.

Matthew dropped a kiss behind his ear and sagged against him, "Let me hear it."

Alfred stiffened for a second but then began signing, "Jocky met with Jenny fair... Aft by the dawning of the day...," Alfred felt Matthew´s mouth lowered to his shoulder and smiled. "But Jockey now is fu' of care... Since Jenny staw his heart away...," Then he turned around and cupped both of Matthew's butt-cheeks, that warm sweet flesh, and murmured softly against his brow, "Altho' she promis'd to be true... She proven has, alake! Unkind... Which gars poor Jockey aften rue... That e'er he loo'd a fickle mind..."

"Tis o'er the hills and far away," Matthew sang along, stroking Alfred's face. "Tis o'er the hills and far away... The wind has blown my plaid away..."

Afterwards, they stood there for some moments in a quiet lull, kissing, long and deep… their cocks pressing against each other…

The noiselessness made Matthew's ears roar. As Alfred put a hand on his bare hip where it curved around his waist, he shivered. His chest rose and fell rapidly. An involuntary low moan accompanied by a hiss of breath escaped him and whispered into the kiss.

Alfred pushed him onto the bed, pressing his body to Matthew's. "Al… Alfred… I… ah… I´ll," Matthew started but Alfred covered his mouth with his own. They had talked and sung and whatever enough. Matthew kissed him back, his arms sliding around Alfred´s neck.

The kiss aroused Alfred and he grinded himself to his lover and revealed his hardness. Matthew moaned into the kiss. Alfred gently disentangled himself then and reached a hand between them and found Matthew´s cock. In two quick strokes he had it hard. "Do you love me?"

Matthew replied, "Fiercely," part whisper and part moan. 

* * *

Autumn evening.

The apple trees in the garden were covered with apples. Two wolf pubs played in the tall grass in front of the hut.

Alfred sat on the front porch, writing a letter, two others were placed on the bank next to him, ready to be send.

Matthew walked out of their workshop, trailed by another wolf pub. He carried a just-completed rocking chair. He stepped onto the porch next to Alfred, placed the rocking chair next to him and sat down. "Alfred, you´ve written him many letters, and he still refuses to reply. Why do you keep doing this?"

Alfred signed the letter and put it into an envelope. "It´s because I believe he´ll change his mind...," he raised his eyebrows, "... one day."

Matthew put his hand into Alfred´s. "And if he won´t?"

Alfred smiled and squeezed Matthew´s hand. "He will. Francis did."

Matthew saw the promise gleaming in Alfred's eyes and brushed Alfred's hand with his thumb. Alfred´s skin felt hot beneath his fingers. "Francis is far too different… He thinks what the world really needs is more love… Doesn´t matter between who… or what."

When Alfred didn´t reply, instead he closed his eyes and inhaled and exhaled deeply and steadily, Matthew slid his hand out of Alfred´s, gently, and seated himself cross-legged in the chair and changed the subject. "Francis taught me how to make maple syrup."

The brothers exchanged an impressed look. Then Alfred admitted, "I´m pulsing with jealousy." He turned on Matthew, his eyes squinting, "Did he… teach you anything else?"

Matthew smiled in a dumb way. "Maple sugar."

The world around them shifted from gray to indigo to black as dusk crept into the leaves-befallen forest. Matthew lit candles, "You´ll keep writing," he said and knelt to pull off his Hunter´s boots. "And I´ll keep the darkness away."

Alfred went back to writing, smiling. Candles shone off his face while Matthew watched the full moon steal their night sky. 

* * *

Winter midnight.

A frost-soaked Alfred walked through the front door. The fire in the stone hearth had burned down to embers, but the room was still warm. Matthew had kicked off his blankets and sheets as he slept. He lay nude atop the featherbed, the muscular curves of his young body limned in the faint glow from the fire. Alfred stood in the door and drank in the sight of him. "He´s all I need... and more," he whispered to himself.

Alfred had not intended to disturb Matthew in his sleep. But the sight of him was enough to make Alfred hard. He let his trousers fall to the floor, then crawled onto the bed, and gently pushed Matthew's legs apart. Matthew murmured in his sleep.

Alfred climbed up and thrust himself inside him and exploded almost at once. Matthew's eyes opened slowly, cloudy with sleep, he stroked them, and he grinned and whispered, "I just had the most perfect dream."

Alfred nipped at Matthew´s neck and nestled his head on Matthew's shoulder. He didn´t pull out of him; he wished that he never had to pull out of him. "This is not a dream," Alfred promised him. "It´s real... all of it. The war, Indians, Brits and the French, and you and me in the center of it."

Matthew's grin grew wide. "And I fucking love it."

The End

Bavaria


End file.
